This is The Daily Poem on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I am Joshua Gibbs, filling in for David Kern.

My new book, Something They'll Not Forget, a handbook for classical teachers, is available now

on the Searcy website.

Today I'm going to read one of my favorite poems to teach.

A very short poem, perhaps even the kind of poem you could commit to memory in about 10 or 15 minutes.

The poem is called A Little Tooth by Thomas Lux.

A little tooth. Your baby grows a tooth.

Then two, and four, and five, then she wants some meat directly from the bone.

It's all over.

She'll learn some words.

She'll fall in love with Cretans, Dults, a sweet talker on his way to jail.

And you, your wife, get old, fly blown, and ruin nothing.

You did.

You loved.

Your feet are sore.

It's dusk.

Your daughter's tall.

I've enjoyed teaching this poem for poetry composition classes for many years now. And I think the reason why I like teaching it so much, at least to teenagers, is that,

much like my papa's waltz by Theodore Rutki,

there's something that sits so ill at the end of this poem.

And there's a distinct note of menace in the poem, although if you look back over the poem,

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