Sang the souls of the bones that were sent back,
Or that came home at least, I don’t know which—
It’s not my poem. It is its own. It lives
The way all poems, all souls of bones must live.
It sort of points. It waits. It sort of is.
These words were not its first words. This is true
For a lot of poems, most old, but some new.
One set of words framed just so, in the air,
In some lines, but just so, leads to the next—
Takes at least one skull to make a new set.
Poems can wait in waves, reeds, bricks, skins, screens, clothes,
Stones, all kinds of things, but need skulls to live,
So far, that is, which keeps poems fond of bones.
