You Are The Bones

I pick bones with my eyes.
There are piles laying in my very hands
waiting to be undressed with careful
winks and nods, furtive glances.
I tell myself it is assuredly for the best
because who knows? I do.
I'll touch their white and polished surface
and find flaws.
A corner sharp enough to prick my flesh
and peel it back to find something more human;
Blood, my tell.
I secretly turn the ugly ones in my hands
scratch them with pale pink nails
strumming endless symphonies never before transcribed.
They are yellow with decay and in them I see no reflection.
The rough exterior scratches my heart deep
to feel my tell pulsing like fire
exploding and dangerous and wonderful.

These chips of Seraphim and shattered jaws of Joseph
pry at my memory of days yet to be seen.
Stories pouring from a pen in wet ink and smudges of pencil
charcoal, scratches on stone walls.
What of these do we take for ourselves?
In selfish moments-- brief vanity tripping under our chins--
How is there such bad in things we never see.
Our own bones hidden beneath years of running
and holding babies in our arms;
days of silence and morbid loneliness
encased, we were when things moved slow.
They barely crept accross the carpet
though we stretched with mammoth breaths our lungs
until we could no longer feel a stinging at the mountains
behind our eyes.
Laying in our hands, how many bones have we overlooked
or sought to change.
To pry from them secrets of civilizations exhaled,
mere strokes of a brush or branch or ice.