My Denture (With Apologies to R.L. Stevenson)

I have a little denture that goes in and out of me;
He’s pasted in with Poligrip for everyone to see.
He is very, very like me from the gum-line to the cusp;
And I jerk him out at bedtime since the dentist says I must.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to click—
Not at all like proper choppers, which can not perform that trick;
For he sometimes feels quite squishy like a spongy rubber ball,
And he’s sometimes stuck so tightly that he doesn’t squawk at all.

He hasn’t got a notion how incisors nibble corn,
And can only make a fool of me, subjecting me to scorn.
He only speaks when I speak—he’s a charlatan you see;
I’d think shame to lisp like granny as my denture lisps like me.

This morning, very early, before the sun arose,
I gasped and found a widened gap beneath my very nose.
Another homeless canine, like a lazy Bowery bum,
lay waiting on my pillow for the Tooth Fairy to come.