As Right As Bone
The perception that you left behind
Is that you left.
While I was hoping you’d stand
As still as a skeleton,
Riiiiight here,
On the spot I have marked with an X in black Sharpie.
You might’ve been right to go.
Hope won’t make it other, so.
So long
Til we talk again.
Words, just a gaseous vibe, won’t change my perception
That you left.
No words to right the wrong
Can’t even write the wrong.
Moving along.
But not…
so long that skin crumbles
And white bone is whittled by winds to soft crumbs of memory.
So close to the skin, the bone.
The perceptions that you write are just some skin on bone.
Leave perceptions alone,
They’re not as right as bone.


I'm on my 6th reading and am awaiting a visit from the bureau of the lost and never found.
I liked the way you played off the words to create the sense of bone-deep loss.