Bones

[sadoeuphemist]

these are the bones of it

 

purposeless, needless, left bleached out 

in the middle of the desert, removed from any causality or blame

 

we could trace these bones back a hundred years 

(or fifty, or forty, or ten)
and find your ancestors here, or mine - 
what face did this skull once wear, what
quivering brood begat here once -
we could argue over the history 
of this place, the tribes that fought and conquered
whose bones these are 
and what killed them, what broken path
led us to this

(we could imagine something living)
 

but I tell you now these bones 
are no different from the rock or sand, worn into
their shapes by wind and grit and time
I have cleaned these bones myself and made them
sterile, scraped the meat from them until
my fingers bled, I have dragged them
into obscure designs
I have labored here
to make them unrecognizable

a living thing is too much yet to bear
too fickle, too vacillating in its intentions, too uncertain
(I cannot adequately defend it) 
too much prone to revision

there is nothing left to understand
but the bones of it

a thing that once here died