Some niche: rested in planks
with its own electric fingers
hovering light to become
our hands, caressing a
mahogany thigh and
making death through
elemental cuts and saws.
Here in the mist jays strain
among wooden feeders and
lichen stains like palms
wrestling with backbone and
clavicle. We are so strong
until the cardinal shares seeds
with mate. Then, we have the
tendency to take out a folded
linen cloth and share it, wrapping
each femur of petrified wood
while bird tolls a dee, dee, dee.
Is it true we bury some religious
without a lid, the death face
covered in tossed flowers, not
wood? And we hold them well
into night, feeling muscles, skeleton,
and hair against our knees, rocking
death away with sensational fingers
and cushions of body bark.
Jan Wiezorek has taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming at Southern Pacific Review, Panoplyzine, Better Than Starbucks, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. He is author of Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011) and holds a master’s degree in English Composition/Writing from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.