Bone-Shaped Tag Kitri Lindberg

BONE-SHAPED TAG

Kitri Lindberg

The last time I sat In the little screened porch Seated between a fresh-water ocean And a home which is not my home I held the body

Earlier, I swept up the braunschweiger, the sugar paste and the baby food It was encased in a yellow embryonic sac A balloon that popped for only me. “Congratulations”, here's some festivity, Your best friend is dying.

I used to fall asleep to the lapping Of waves, in time with the breathing-The dragon breath of an animal in your bed. I would push him against the wall-To make space for my feet-And now i can stand on him, On the bloody rust rocks marking his grave.

You never realize, do you know How real and living a body can seem Just minutes after the heart has stopped You can hold it, tightly If you close your eyes you can pretend Your heaving sobs are their breaths Your shaking form Is the rising and falling of their chest.

So you pull back, just to check But when your eyes open, They do not conspire to lie Like your treacherous heart.

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