My Daughter Brings Home Bones

and piles them on the driveway: femur, rib, jawbone with a few

flat teeth attached, dozens of thin arced parts. This one for me—40

today. My birthday sent her to the woods and back. Chloe leans

in on her knees, arranges the bones along a concrete seam that

leads out to the street. In this next decade, she'll go: head off like

today, take into her arms all she's curious about. Her line of bones

makes an arrow; sun lights them like a sign. She'll go: undeniable

as these bones, baffling as what animal they'd make. She's on all

fours. The way I labored: some wild thing. She lays out arms and

legs; the bones in line make a spine. My height. On the driveway

lies my body—when it held her—inside out. The way she came:

like bones. Gleaming, after living in my dark. Gleaming. So I can

always find her.

Source: No Acute Distress (Southern Illinois University Press, 2016)