I
the multiplicity of the world
bears fruit even on the tree
of bone chapels

cross-woven femurs,
praying circles of skulls,
scattered silence of tibias:
gushing bones without blood

how can there be more than one
chapel made of bones?

simply because bones without blood
is such a powerful sight

visitors come to worship the battered
chess pieces of innumerable human lives

II
weaver of femurs,
skulls, tibias

let me someday become
part of the eye-startling walls
in the chapel of bones

visitors will look up
and see my battered white pieces
and hide fearful death glances
from each other

youth will smile in defiance as
their eyes easily swallow
the last earthly vestige of
my tender imprint


an elderly man
will take me home
in his head while
tapping his cane
onto brick squares
as he thinks of how
I am simply the future version
of himself

lost in thought
he cannot see
above his head:
an eruption of life
in the bone-hollow form
of 10,000
migrating birds

02/01/2005

Posted on 02/01/2005
Copyright © 2026 Tom Goss