Bones

Our bones connect us

in a chalky prayer, the marrow

hands held upwards to the font.

You see a dog.

Behind its canine exterior,

a small curved skull with teeth,

a tail, several bones in succession.

A small puppy, ears
folded over, dog-eared, lolling,
its small feet soft and
coiled tail bouncing,
and underneath
a faint white shadow of bone.

You see a child,

not yet quite skeletal,

more embryonic in form:

you couldn’t imagine a skull

behind such small and perfect eyes.

And yet we calcify.

Just like dinosaurs of old.

We are the dog’s dinner,

and the dog’s dinner

is not so bad.

We will sleep an eternal

sleep. Weep the weeping

of eternal and unfinished dreaming.

We are connected through

the chalk of our bones, and we 
rub off on one another,
a white sea unseeming.