Toothbrush: Thought Police # 89


Dear Colgate 360, I want you in my mouth.
During Board meetings, Labour Management meetings 
when the interpretation of Article 34 – Sick Pay – gets sticky,
during budget presentations to the Finance Committee,
then do I want your supple, absolving bristles on my tongue.

I knead you between my lips, the plastic neutrality
of your handle a temperature just below mine. 
I lean over the sink in the women’s bathroom.
People are always asking, supplicating, extracting decisions 
– that grievance payout, that motion to rise and report, 
that 5% budget increase for another fiscal year – 
but with you in my mouth, I have a reprieve.

Dear Colgate 360, Chief Oral Officer
and Director of the Department of Hygienic Affairs,
I crave your mint aftertaste, the flavour of a directive well-received, 
of strategic alignment while churning out a policy report at 4:00 am.
You are the taste of a well-placed semi-colon,
a termination letter delivered on a Tuesday,
a conference presentation, hungover but hiding it well.

Don’t flatter yourself – I know you’re not a lone operative.
I see the support you gleen from your executive team
– Toothpaste, the Bringer of Mint; Dental Floss, the Fixer.
None of us are any more than the products of our surroundings.

And don’t think your work is over at 5:00 pm.
At the end of the night, you are my final accomplice,
scraping off the evidence of G&Ts, another blowjob, whatever.
I cradle you in front of a different sink, a different mirror 
and contemplate my distorted cheeks as I brush.