Fable
       

In the forest, the owl releases a boneless cry.
I know the names of things here
and I can hold them.
I hold your hand:
a matryoshka opening deeper
until I can hear your bones
singing into mine,
and feel the moon

as it rolls through you
like a great city before a war
where it has been night for so long
that everyone sees
with their hands,
and then somewhere in the city
a newborn animal
shakes the dust off itself

and stands, makes
a thimbleful of sound,
and a boy standing in the square
turns toward it,
and his father, not knowing
what his hands will be made to do
to other men,
places a hand on his head.

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Copyright © 2014 Sara Eliza Johnson All rights reserved
from Bone Map
Milkweed Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission