Skeleton

No one dead will ever
read these words,
and those alive now
will sweep them from the streets.
The writing of our time most
likely to survive is graffiti.
It survives war.
So why not spray letters
you can see a long way off,
"the plain picture,"
as Bob Dylan put it.
"Truth. . .," he said. "Why,
truth is just the plain picture."

The dogs run through half-thawed
woods, barking the holy scary
words rote in a child,
ruins and crosses and bones,
never outgrown.
And they dig at the gray roses
of hives collapsed in snow,
nothing but paper, words
saying there was honey once.

I asked Truth what to worship,
and Truth said Death,
looking up from licking
the caviar of moments
from Death's hand.
So here are the bones
in the exploded view,
pelvis and vertebrae,
thrown dice of hands.
Look at the skull.
I'm its voice.

Copyright © 2005 Chase Twichell All rights reserved
from Dog Language
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission