The Bone Farmer

But I am a farmer of bones.

—Thomas McGrath, Letter to an Imaginary Friend

The winter frost accretesHard rime of the soilAnd I watch the window of sun    how it flickers each day like something    slowly

Coming to life

If we are to melt let usMelt together

    The days of our solitude,    you sewing in a corner

Me fishing pallid tomatoes from a can,    rot into rich loam

    The bone seeds wait within us

The first trickle of water  Winds its way downThe mountain

    The red tips of leaves have pressed their way from the limbs

This morning you paint your nails    I whisper, yes, yes.

The first harvest   we couldn’t stop touching    the fruit

It was rubbing our hands across    the mint, the basil, the rosemary    breathing inOur fingertips    it was the peaches, that soft down, that honeyed scentIt was the beautiful pressure of a cherry tomato burst in your mouth

Then the children came	and we were careful
To mulch the ground	to clip the lettuce
Before its bitter hour.	The bone shadows grew
And the rain bone fell	and you could smell the deep bone

Building skeletons in the ground

A new spring has come    and the storm melts the fields outside our window

  In the orchard bone fruit hangs heavy on the limbs

We curl into each other in the half-light of dusk,  the tangled vines of our legs,Our fingers rooting to each other

The air is ripe

With our bodies. The horizon’s glow still fleshes the earth  But the charnel house moon is a sickle in the sky.

The black bird capers in the soil, dips its bill to tear the earthworm    from the marrow

It flashes a blood red wing and sings a bone song,Tilts its head backAnd swallows the raw bone whole.