Bone Poem

Tell me again about the slick bones
of the skull: occipital, frontal, temporal, parietal,

and the forgiving groove of fontanels grown
stone-hard and stubborn. Tell me about

cervical and thoracic vertebrae rising
from the lover's lumbar curve, about clavicles

and sternum, and floating ribs falling south.
Tell me about the humerus, twisting dance of radius

and ulna, how all twenty-eight phalanges
swing open on the hand's silent hinges.

Tell me about cane-shaped femurs, the fluted
pipe of tibia, and slender, clasping fibula,

tarsals wide and sure, and calcaneum, the calculus
of our unending path. Tell me about the smooth bowl

of the pelvis with its high and wide iliac crests,
the sacrifice of sacrum, and coccyx, memory of tail.

Tell me again about the bony tools of the ear,
how hammer, stirrup, and anvil return to us

the sounds of our small, miraculous lives.

Copyright © 2004 Heather Davis All rights reserved
from 5AM
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission