No one has black bones,
At least not by when
We get to see them,
Not if they’re not burned.
But these do look gray,
Like ghosts, in X-rays,
Ghosts that aren’t quite there.
And where they broke, cracked,
The gray’s a thinned haze,
A veil torn on film.
These bones, these used twigs,
These wisps of smoke, these
Flakes of ash. Their shapes
Spell smoked glass, or glass
When it melts and cools,
Not the shapes you’d think
Things would take that cracked
Or snapped. But they have.
At night, when the sounds
Of the walls and roads
Hum and pulse, when wind
Whips trees past street lamps
So they moan and dance,
But not too loud, these
Bones, too, moan and hum.
