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NEARING AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Pattiann Rogers

Those are my bones rifted

and curled, knees to chin,

among the rocks on the beach,

my hands splayed beneath my skull

in the mud. Those are my rib

bones resting like white sticks

wracked on the bank, laid down,

delivered, rubbed clean

by river and snow.



Ethereal as seedless weeds

in dim sun and frost, I see

my own bones translucent as locust

husks, light as spider bones,

as filled with light as lantern

bones when the candle flames.

And I see my bones, facile,

willing, rolling and clacking,

reveling like broken shells

among themselves in a tumbling surf.



I recognize them, no other's,

raggedly patterned and wrought,

peeled as a skeleton of sycamore

against gray skies, stiff as a fallen

spruce. I watch them floating

at night, identical lake slivers

flush against the same star bones

drifting in scattered pieces above.



Everything I assemble, all

the constructions I have rendered

are the metal and dust of my locked

and storied bones. My bald cranium

shines blind as the moon.




From Eating Bread and Honey, published by Milkweed Editions, 1997. Copyright © 1997 by Pattiann Rogers. All rights reserved. Used with permission.