Prayer for the meat-clung bone
God, when you raise the dead,
raise him last. Let him rot
a little longer than the others.
Let him panic as his memory
staggers towards the youngest of us.
Gag his grave with the milk-sour
stench of girls, the hot and
damp heat of small mouths
fervent for a mother who sees
a knife and thinks: brother.
And before he can beg sister, sister!
And before he can plead forgive me?
Pack his mouth with flint.
Set fire to every cottony tooth,
tongue and tender meat-clung
bone. If you ran red the dirt
drawls of our girlhood,
if you gave language
to your girl slaves,
allow the pebbles
to gather in praise
of the scorpion’s
singing sting.
"Prayer for the meat-clung bone" originally appeared in The Rumpus.
