Flesh and Bones

Now that your bones are fleshy,
Return to her.
Reach into her pockets, remove the polished stones.
With your hands, dig gentle holes for them,
small graves. These are not seeds.
The words once hit her bones
Like a tuning fork,
Making her tremble all through the night
A single note.
Remember how she went through the world
Like a blind man
Trying to startle a symphony from the trees
But striking the bare winter branches.

I can’t stand to look at her.
She is kneeling
over a crack in the sidewalk like shriveled child.
The passing students are gesturing to one another
as they talk. She is trying
to pull the walkway apart,
like she is asking too soon to know
what death is.
Why won’t she just say no,
as I have?