KAMAL E. KIMBALL
Who Gave Them Bones What does it mean when the word for a thing is the same word for its disappearing? While the gumbo simmers, bone the meat I am that wishbone on the windowsill, when dry I split like legs. Another meaning of bone is to fuck. And they call the thing they fuck with a bone, too. What does it mean when you name the act of love after your appendage? I am renaming Justice pussy. Truth uterus. I free the bones of men, incise the malleus, incus, the stapes from their ears, place them on my tongue like pills and clack my teeth so loud any man could hear it in his marrow. The sound of bone going home, going down my throat. They forget it means who gave them bones can take them back.
POETRY | 115