What Grandmother’s Teeth Said as They Sat on the Nightstand In a Glass of Water, by Dianna MacKinnon Henning

When the slipshod hours of midnight
drizzle into the shadowy hold of darkness,

and cloaked figures stake their hide-outs
in corners so bleak even investigative cops

can’t find them, teeth in their small glass aquarium,
open and close; bubbles rising,

seeds of words breaking onto the surface
like a poem from the past

when someone was a child
and the near scent of words

led her into the sweetest dreams
of forests so captivating, where trees had wings

the elm, the pine, the hemlock
suddenly off into the lofty air,

while down on the ground
both bear and chipmunk

scamper about their business foraging.
The years traipse by like scarecrows.

As for the teeth on the nightstand—
they recited E. Dickinson’s,

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.

The dark night’s no trouble,
except when you are in the thick of it.

–

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Dianna MacKinnon Henning taught through California Poets in the Schools, received several California Arts Council grants and taught poetry workshops through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program, including Folsom Prison, and runs The Thompson Peak Writers’ Workshop. Publications, in part: The Power of the Feminine, Vol. II; One Art Poetry, 2024; Mocking Heart Review, 2024; Poet News, Sacramento; Worth More Standing, Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees; Voices; Artemis Journal, 2021 & 2022 & 2023; The Adirondack Review; Memoir Magazine; The Tule Review; The Lake, UK; California Quarterly; The Plague Papers, Blue Heron Review, and New American Writing. Nomination by The Adirondack Review for a Pushcart Prize, her seventh nomination. MFA in Writing ’89, Vermont College. She recently read with poet Lara Gularte, Poet Laureate Emeritus of El Dorado County. Recently nominated by Blue Heron Review for Best of the Net Anthology for her poem “In the Collage of my Mind/I’m a Simple Design.” She has a new book “Rucksacks for the Leaf Cat” accepted by Finishing Line Press. Nominated by Blue Heron Review Nov. 2024 for a Pushcart Prize.

© 2025, Dianna MacKinnon Henning