rooming with your bones
When they asked at the post office what you wanted
with a skeleton, you said you were studying
the human form. When they said, What?
The girlfriend’s not enough? you laughed,
and now request that I take care of it
while you finish your semester in Bordeaux.
The skeleton is real,
you tell me, and once belonged to a man,
so I should show some respect.
I don’t believe you, and throw pistachios at his eye sockets
when I’m on the phone or bored.
During the day,
I slide my socks over his ribs,
drape my bras over his shoulders,
and thread necklaces through his ears.
I try to gag him with a pair of my underwear,
but dislodge his jaw instead
and spend most of my weekend plugging his teeth back in.
But his shadows deepen at night,
and the unhinged skull glows
from the street light outside my window.
The hairs on my neck prick up
when he rattles from the 2 AM train.
I wheel him from one room of the apartment to the next
the bones clacking like clumsy chopsticks
as I try to banish him from my peripheral vision.
I threw a party in your absence
where the guests convinced me
the bones were a sure sign
that you’d taken another lover.
I pull the Ouija board out from under my bed
and wipe off its dust veil.
We set his jaw on the table
shaking his loose teeth
in our cupped palms
before flinging them across the table like dice.
We dot the corners of the counter top with candles
then turn off the lights.
back to Heather Gustine
