Shortlisted: 2020 Bridport Poetry Prize
Bridport Poetry Prize

bone island

I take my bones each night and
lay them one by one upon the cabinet
by our bedstead, separating flats from
longs or wedging the irregulars in between
to prop up the assortment of human
bulk; once I finish with the bones I
tackle the organs; plopping them one
upon the other is not enough, you’ve
got to cradle each mass in your palms awhile
like sculptures carved of jelly; listen
to their sounds, quiet sometimes,
sometimes prophesying their
annals of love, the minutiae of survival, or
what we call life, as though that were a
phial containing myrrh and wormwood
tossed together in driblets when
all it was, was a fistful scooped up
from the backyard somewhere, seeded,
taken root, routed, bearing the detritus of
loves and losses or what’s left of
you and I now; did you know
the spleen is the toughest to house?
there’s nothing much you can do except
splay its purple largeness over all others, let it
filter the remnants of what was or
is now, safeguarding blood with memory,
buffering reserves of pain and heartaches, or
holding moments against the pulsing of the
day-after-day-after-day; yes,
laying them all out is a task but
putting them back together is an ordeal;
you have to wait for the magic fires
to strike that first spark, to string
them back together into being
as though a lifetime weren’t enough already;
as though pain were felt in parts, where parts of
you and I were always left behind and wherever
we’ve walked, and with whomever we’ve
been spent or broken; we’re islands, have been
forever; and no, there are no sharp bones in
the body he’d told me once; well, that’s
some relief as we would’ve long shred ourselves
to bits then, before letting others do it

~~

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