TIRED BONES was published in The Daily Drunk.

Poets have already sucked all the marrow from bones, gleaming,/ weary, and white. They hear the cracking in a way/ those ordinary among us simply stack pelvis atop femur—/ all cantilevered over a mosaic of metacarpals—and jaunt forth,/ teeth exposed and clattering. The writers strut and pick/ clean the shards like ravens. Sifting through the splinters,/ they pan for secrets set deep within the supple collagen matrix/ as it reknits itself—kinked and brittle—always a little too bent./ If you’re off center, take the break. There are those who lay/ prostrate, roll over, masticate and grind; in the mouth/ they assuage the stiff and tired, spurred by transforming/ a loss. After all this time, who doesn’t enjoy a good boning.

Author’s Note: Sometimes, the snark must come through. That’s happened when I wrote this poem in response to reading so many works published in literary magazines that featured the tired trope of bones… bones that crack audibly, can be felt from within, and hold our deepest truths. Ah well, I’m guilty of it, too. In my story, Au Bon Pain (published in a print edition of the Worcester Review) I wrote, “I can hear my bones cracking with every footfall.”