I'm going to sneak one more poem in here before the last poem.
So we talked quite a bit today about Jack Johnson
and Shakespeare, so I'm going to read a poem where
that comes into play.
So this is called "Gold Smile" and it's
got an epigraph from Henry VI.
"Teeth hadst thou in thy head when
thoust was born to signify thou camest to bite the world."
"Gold Smile."
They called teeth dent in France,
and the name makes sense the way teeth do
what they do to bacon and shoulders and cakes.
The French word for gold is or, so when the folks in Paris
describe my smile, it sounds like what
happens when I punch a door.
Dents d'or.
Dents d'or, the French children say when I open wide.
Dents d'or, Etta says when she locks herself
in the powder room.
Tommy Burns said dents d'or when I was hooking him in
to ask him for forgiveness.
His people back in Canada would have said the exact same thing
if they were in Sydney to witness our spectacle.
Before we got into the ring, I told Tommy, the only reason
I got these gold uppers is to make every bite of my food
twice as expensive as it used to be.