A response to Jane via me and RCL...
Bones
Flicking leaf litter with the lower end
of a utilitarian thumbstick
often reveals the skeletal remains
of some small creature that has reached the end
of its allotted span. Perhaps a lark
lies ready-split, swindled out of its music
leaving behind the ghosts of instruments
with which to call it back. A rib-marimba
resonating under a fingernail,
long flutes of legs and a keel-tambourine
backing a gaping beak’s absence of singing
in a lament to lay a bird to rest.
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