She found him lying in a puddle at the bottom of her garden
Quivering, gelatinous
A flaccid skin-sac with no rigid form.
She nudged him with her foot. He moaned.
My mother did this to me, you know. She was the first
of many women to ransack my bones.
My bones. They cracked their teeth upon my bones.
Then sucked the marrow from each one.
By luck this girl had grown some extra bones
Sternum, rib, clavicle and some
distal phalanges, but he needed more.
So she trawled round butcher, hospital, funeral home,
to make complete the skeleton.
By candlelight she fit the bones, and one by one
strung vertebrae like pearls along
his spinal cord; unfolded limb flaps to receive
femurs, ulnas and pisiform.
Then clicked the ribs in place before
attaching fascia and tendon.
And when it seemed he was complete
she pulled him up, but he screamed, No!
I never learned to walk alone,
I have no brawn to work these bones.
And so she carried on -
made pulleys, levers, strings and gears
to move his limbs and reform
nerve impulse, build muscle tone.
But what little progress made was undone
at night, when furtively he slurped
his own myosin and protein curls,
ground keratin with new found jaw.
Each day he shrank and then
one morning he was gone -
except for the dry stack of bones.
Quivering, gelatinous
A flaccid skin-sac with no rigid form.
She nudged him with her foot. He moaned.
My mother did this to me, you know. She was the first
of many women to ransack my bones.
My bones. They cracked their teeth upon my bones.
Then sucked the marrow from each one.
By luck this girl had grown some extra bones
Sternum, rib, clavicle and some
distal phalanges, but he needed more.
So she trawled round butcher, hospital, funeral home,
to make complete the skeleton.
By candlelight she fit the bones, and one by one
strung vertebrae like pearls along
his spinal cord; unfolded limb flaps to receive
femurs, ulnas and pisiform.
Then clicked the ribs in place before
attaching fascia and tendon.
And when it seemed he was complete
she pulled him up, but he screamed, No!
I never learned to walk alone,
I have no brawn to work these bones.
And so she carried on -
made pulleys, levers, strings and gears
to move his limbs and reform
nerve impulse, build muscle tone.
But what little progress made was undone
at night, when furtively he slurped
his own myosin and protein curls,
ground keratin with new found jaw.
Each day he shrank and then
one morning he was gone -
except for the dry stack of bones.