The Color of Bones

My mother (a bleacher of bloodstained sheets) bleaches my dreams the color of bones, and feeds me on snakes and dirty slate stones. She winces each time I walk through the door, a mere apparition (though we’ve done this before.) She blinks at the angles of my newly-formed hips and her voice sounds strangled through thin pressed lips. “He did this because he was stressed at work; if you turn your head if you concentrate hard our skeletons will stay buried in our own backyard.” Oh! See how dust motes stir in my wake (and mother just Pledged, for Heaven’s sake!) Don’t pick at your scabs Don’t stand pigeon-toed Don’t ask for answers to questions you’ve no right to know. O, wicked child so much in the way Nothing but underfoot night and day. Can’t you see that your visibility makes mother suspect her accountability? But others decide the sting of my fate! The slant of my head and the tread of my feet— and mother’s bleaching my blood from her snowy white sheets. Another fine mess for mother to scour And look at the time! Another lost hour! I’ve gone far away so far from myself and live on old bones and the most cunning of stealth. I’ve perfected the art of tip-toeing on my Flintstoned feet . . . and mother is bleaching my blood from her snowy-white sheets.