Bone Claims

It’s not that the prince had it wrong
when he picked up the skull,
said to tell us to paint ourselves 
an inch thick, we’d come to this.

So here I am. Full of echoes, 
cries, inconsistencies.
Full of dust & full of holes.

It’s a bearable lightness, being without
one woe treading upon another 
through my blood.

Not that grief goes completely.
Sometimes, if I lean into night & stars
I hear old flutes in the wind:
blood song.

Lynne Knight | Blue Dresses & Amen
Contents | Mudlark No. 62 (2017)