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NATASHA DENNERSTEIN

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Body of Work

 

Your body brought elation till it was

ready for cremation. All that remains

returned to me, rattling rectangular

 

plastic box of you, your skin

and muscle ashes, but bony bits

intact. I play bones with your knuckles,

 

knuckles with your bones. Your

metacarpus once fingered and stroked;

your coccyx that perched on velvet thrones;

 

your maxilla that smiled so sweet;

all hard and gritty chunks, now, dispersed

amongst the kitty litter of your ashes, babe.

 

Segments of scapula can be discerned

and your hyoid and lachrymal bones, that worked

so hard to cause and shed so many tears.

 

But your feet, your metatarsus and

astragalus that leapt, crept and flew

improbably, delighting with the stretching

 

of what bodies can do, all reduced

to rubble now. I rattle your deconstructed

carcass in your blockish, plastic casket.

 

 

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