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.

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