Spending Hours at the Dentist’s Office

The Etheree is a little-know poetry format named after an Arkansas poet, Etheree Teylor Armstrong. It is a poem of ten lines, unrhymed and no meter. Syllables follow the pattern:
1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10. It can also be reversed which I have done with the topic of a visit to the dentist.

a
dental
visit and
with numbed mouth was
difficult to rinse
tried but a dribble went
down my chin, over my clothes
face felt twice the normal size which
made eating, speaking, drinking awful
spent many moons sitting at the dentist

Reverse Etheree: (10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1)

Why? Cleaning, filling, polishing, x-rays
root canals, caps, implants, filling work
to preserve and keep teeth for a
lifetime of pearly white teeth
alternative is grim
losing all your teeth
chewing is hard
floss daily
brushing
well