I did not write anything yesterday; today is still up for grabs. Meanwhile, I re-discovered a couple (okay, four) poems I wrote in 1992, while I was still living in Tokyo. This particular poem would appear to be concerned with the subway.
The girl
with the brown teeth
and skin condition
takes another drag
from her
cigarette
A man
with a brown briefcase
and bloodshot eyes
stares blankly
as he pukes
on the platform
While a student
in slacks
with earphones
in his ears [where else?]
bobs his head
in silence
eyes closed
A foreigner
wearing dark sunglasses
sits in a seat
by the door
staring
straight ahead
(7 August 2015)
Ordinary Average Thoughts 
Surely you must’ve written more about brown teeth. I graduated high school that year!
Fortunately, brown teeth do not figure prominently in my writing. 🙂
Around that same time, though, I did have a co-worker who had very nice, straight teeth. They were rather a deep shade of yellow, however…
Haha! What kind of work were you doing there?
Translation. Nothing to do with teeth. My impression at that time (1987–1992) was that dentistry in Japan wasn’t as efficient as in the U.S. For example, my girlfriend in 1988-89 went to the dentist four times for a cleaning — once for each quadrant. If it took four visits for a simple cleaning, I could understand why people might not see the dentist that often. That’s why I never saw a dentist while I lived in Tokyo. Fortunately, when I did finally see a dentist a few years after coming back to the U.S., my teeth were in remarkably good condition.
Well that’s good.