Mica

Most weekends, surgeons came for lamb and raita,
masala, rice and pista-badam custard.
American jokes in your Indian accent
brought the whole room hiccups. Laughter was
your chance to check teeth; wisecracks were,
who would have known, a sign of distress—
jokes in a new idiom meant the loss
of another tongue. Your face looked spent
on pure work, a seven-headed panic—
patients waiting, clinic full of glass.
Doctor, your good nature and dentistry
shattered laughs like mica and lab formica:
a horde of mirrored smiles became more densely
packed over a quarter-acre yard.