For every missing person there is
a skeleton somewhere
Perhaps raising a glass in a toast or
Huddled on a street corner or
Standing in line with a child perched
Atop his shoulders.
Some skeletons lie in jumbled heaps
Beneath scrubby, stunted trees
Shrouded by silence and dry, dead leaves.
Proof that earth overcomes flesh
But barely, just barely.
See the outline of bony wreckage
The slight hill formed by what might be
The skull, or maybe a hip;
The long declivity of a thigh.
Awake? Asleep? Who knows.
Observe, clinically, the sly wink of gold
on one slender white phalange. If you
look closer, you can see the hand at rest,
as if, any moment, this skeleton could claw
and pull and push itself upright;
As if, any moment, it might rise, shrugging
flesh back onto its shoulders like
putting on an old forgotten coat.
And walk, away from you, into its old life.
In truth, it already has. So
Lie down, lie down in that hollow
That place left behind.
Be hollow yourself. You won�t be alone.
Small animals will come and carry
Bits of you away. Grateful for shelter,
They will nest in the space beneath your ribs
They will curl behind the curve of your neck
Like a pillow.
Forget flesh and all its unsubtle messiness
Forget longing, and joy, and the way you seemed to
Vibrate like a hummingbird�s throat. Forget how
You came when you were called,
Went where you were told to go,
opened yourself with barely a word spoken.
Forget all that. Reduce yourself to bony essentials, to
What lasts longest.
Come fall, leaves will drift down
to cover you like clean bedsheets fresh
off the line.
Sleep now. Try not to dream.