Emaline Kercher

Every print in the grass
has led me here;
a year of reflection nips at me
it punctures and gnaws then
pulls skin off the bone
blood seeps from the passing days
as my skeleton chatters in the wind,
ribs whistling with passing gusts,
bare without its muscles or fat.

Take dirt and
glue it to my bones,
some plastered-on
sand wouldn’t hurt,
tie flowers down my vertebrae,
next to vines stapled up my frame.
Take shovels to pack clove,
seal pebbles with tape
and grass with tacks,
coat me in fertilizer
but leave room for gaps.

Weed me weekly with care,
and build me new, raw sheathing
free of guilt, untied from memory,
and fresh for new persevering.