My Poetry (Bones) Poem by Jason Bouthillier

I need them to see my bones
in glass jars,
bone-on-glass-sounds as they rattle me

their fingerprints left to these vessels
for my bones to gaze to
ghostly rippled beings
see-through in the windows

and a chance shaman
(my bones yearn for)
he splits into my marrow
tastes me on mystic tongue

and paints me on his face
to bring fear into the huts
and magic around the village fire

my red liquid, my flesh
spews from his mouth
giving meat to my bones
before their eyes

I coalesce, borne frenzied
to shred myself, to claw it off
with hard, wet phalanges

because I need them to see my bones