You brought it home, yellow with age
and old ligament, and propped it up
in the entryway of our home, next to
the umbrellas. This led to the making
of soup and a long discussion
about death. I asked, Can we just pretend for a moment
that all we have to do to survive is
follow a straight line?
And you agreed. The moon spends too much time
breathing, spying on our children
as they sleep, on the stovetop burner
that’s been left on once or twice
throughout the night, the fumes
finding their way into the living room
and up the stairs toward our beds, spends
too little time staring at that bone. Maybe the moon
has a better understanding of death:
once it dies, it is placed in the ground,
or isn’t. Either way, it is never spoken of
again, never spied on. But still, we keep it
next to the umbrellas, sometimes throw
a jacket over its length. And sometimes we ponder
where it came from, what animal, and
how fast it had to run from predators,
or how often.