Tooth

Photo from the Wellcome Trust

Tooth

by M. Frost

It spirals to the left,
emerging from a dentin core,
exquisite and softer than expected.

King and church went mad for it, alicorn
fabled to protect from poison, paid ransoms
for the prize, cut their forks from it, made drinking horns
as cure against disease, drew circles from its pearl
enamel to starve scorpions
trapped within.

Queen Elizabeth received one
as a gift, taken from the corpse-blue
body of a whale, narwhal, unicorn of the ice-
choked oceans of the north.

This single-crowned
cetacean still dives the chilly black,
nerve-rich tooth extended
from its brow,

immortal now
only as the legend
ancient traders told in exchange
for their fill
of gold.