Bone Poems

Rib Bones

The world is shadows says Plato shadows
Shadows on cave walls and it is dank and dark
Crouching in our own urine, warmness, wetness
The bones of lost birds clutter the floor
Meat stripped, the bones of dead rodents
Matted flesh clings to femurs
The bones of my ancestors
The bones of my mother
Bones in shadow
The bones become shadow
My own body’s bones lying hard on a dirt cave floor
And maybe there is light and sunshine and truth
Outside, truth says Plato is real, not the shadow
And your world he says is shadow
As if Plato gets to say anything about this life
Here in a damp urine-drenched cave
Where walls are slicker than slicky
A body’s bones wrapped as a fetus
Curling in a dank womb of Earth
Surrounded by the bones of my mother

Among the ribs of my mother.

Metacarpal

When you lived, you studied anthropology and told me there is a word called “endocannibalism” and asked if I would eat your dead body because dying alone is not your cup of tea and there’d be something lovely about our consummation as you’d become blood of my blood, finally entering me fully, and here you are with heart nestled in Corning Ware, and finger flesh slides down the inside of my throat tracing the lines of memories of hands brushing skin — I lift the bone lightly to touch the hollow of my neck, holding onto our shared desire for banquets with silver platters, promises that could satiate our hunger.

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