Bone Etchings

Joe Blades
From:   In the Valley of the Shadow of Poets' Corner. Maxville: above/ground press, 1994.

bone etchings

skeletons
driftwood now beach
dry land
             in summer's low tide

We skirt
             bone etching
                      of a first-year doe
      crossing ice
she broke through
                      :      floundered
and caught in hidden currents
                was pulled under ice
wild staring eyes

at the end
of frozen ocean
              lake
we watch the sundew
plants trap buzzing
                insects
swallow
in tightly clasped hands
                  alms of food
i want to wait
               :   :  weeks
until these hands unfold
and dew again
but no

driftwood
skeletons the shore

Bones
         of fires
we build

in the morning
                    we drift
through echoes
                      of pine

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6 | Poem 7

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