You break the jaw from the crushed skull, collecting
more remnants for the mantel, souvenirs you’ll lose
the meaning for. In the bony cavity, teeth rattle
the clack, clack of abandoned purpose.
I lift the yellow bone to my nose. Breath and cry
remembered. The well-worn molars ridged in black.
A heron heaves off its post. An eclipse of wings
like a blue bow over the lake. I don’t forget
the whole task of prayer and longing. I hold
the deer’s unclean break of mouth and a gray feather.
I hold your fingers, which I steal to my mouth
to keep from talking, to keep the want from invading the purpose.
I deliver you quiet and shaking. You say, “I’ll kiss you
because no one’s looking.” I summon that mouth of grazing molars,
mud in the crevice, beetle fleshing the bone back to dust.
In the jaw, our inadequate chewing. It seems we’ve acquired the beast
when we put it in our pocket, because we take it with us.