Tara McDaniel

Casting for Bone Spirits

For seven days

I have been willing your name

into the darkness.

If only fingertips,

I would stay.

All I have

is this small bundle

tied in smooth cloth,

clay red.

Tug loose its mouth

and it ruptures,

tiny fragments of bone

scattered upon the dry soil.

The answer stirs the dust

in the most ancient

of puzzles.

Is that your voice I hear rising up

through the ash?

No, not yet.  In memory

there is only

the scythe of your nose,

the sharp thrust of hips.

When the dust settles

tomorrow will no longer have

a sound.

Tara McDaniel's work has been published in Staples, Project for a New Mythology, and Words-Myth.  She is currently working on a Master's degree online at the University of Denver, and resides in Oklahoma with her husband and three (beastly) cats.  She works evenings as a library tech in a rare books archive.