Milk Teeth in the Offering Plate
She thought it meant what it said:
Firstfruits,
the things you lose
without being asked to.
So she brought her baby teeth,
tucked in a tin
that used to hold mints
and now held
the beginnings of obedience.
Dropped them soft
into the velvet-lined plate—
little bones rattling
like prayer beads out of order.
The congregation chuckled
like she’d brought fingerprint to a crucifixion.
But the pastor wept
and didn’t explain why.
She sat straighter that day,
not because she got it right,
but because
she believed God would take
whatever she had left to lose.