These Literal Bones

~ for Beverly Dahlen

What is written on these bones before ash
Burned them before the dead were really

Dead --"if we are living we can not know,
if we are dead we can not know"-- from
These bones flames these bones derive

Messages --"over and over a tardy light"
-- Messages from our lives whenever we

Were not looking within not fat with that
Vision "one's career among bones" for

--"abstract death"-- was --"a hole in the
Skull"-- I heard this in the distance of those
Flames fire leaving its message here --"to

become indistinguishable of wood-ash"--
Where literal bones already inscribed us.