The Remains, Alive

Ostinelli and Priest

A hundred hands I reached to hold
With your help crushed my bones to a thin powder to fill
The hungry mouth of Sunday evening

It took so long for me to grasp
The idea that it takes time
For most of us
To get where we meant to. Hopefully.

Days go by, spitting out
Agave and lemon trees onto
What was first desolated.
— To each day its given defeat.

Ears surprised, then closed
To what I had to say, to where I had been Bone-tired, half enlightened, foolishly incurious.
For I had been laying where shame is not.

Back
to grinding the contents of my mouth to a pulp
The little lily rises
Sweat and music, the canticles of the underbelly
— Of the underneath
Of little triumphs flying high. Dotting the sky
With poised darkness.