Bone

the day my fingers were folded into
a swinging door’s hinge
and pressed there like flowers

the way my father explained
his wife’s cancer as if it were
ice the way his voice fractured

in college my boyfriend’s father
tried to free a horse
with hooves stuck in a cattle guard

then it reared from the sparks
each leg snapped like a matchstick
and it collapsed into ashes

why does this swarm
of bees hang from a tree limb
like a chest without ribs

and why do cracked ceramics
when repaired with gold lacquer
seem to glimmer between seams

somewhere the wings
of a resting monarch
close and open like eyelids

somewhere
a fuse
is being lit

somewhere a snake
slips outside of his skin
as he slips his jaw open

Reprinted from Mag Gabbert’s SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS, used by permission of Mad Creek Books, an imprint of The Ohio State University Press.