Whose Bones?
Open or closed
my eyes cannot see.
This is not me.
I lie in the dark back bedroom.
My daughter’s high-pitched voice invades
from the front room, the jagged glass
of her laugh. If I had the strength
I’d snatch a sliver, scrape
it across the lavender veins
of my wrist.
The pain.
Only in my mind
her adolescent face,
her father’s blue eyes,
and she knows it.
Her laugh is loud, for my benefit.
Her friend thinks I am at work.
Pain grits its teeth.
Whose bones lie useless
in this bed anyway, unable
to support their own weight?
Something sprawls within
my brain. Something
has stolen my whole body.
The pain.
This is not me.
~ Phyllis Wax
Copyright for the poem remains with the poet.
Thank you to the two consulting judges, Judith Tullis and Caroline Johnson.
© Wilda Morris 2012
