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—
After the painting by Alan Magee, 2001, acrylic and oil on panel, 16x22"
Begin with the one farthest to the left.
When we were taught to read, it was there
we looked, following the letters along
to make words. Can this sentence
be deciphered? Seven bones, unidentified,
though surely the paired ones are pelican.
All the bones, stark white, but not quite,
seem to measure the page: 2", 3 ½", 4 ¼".
Knobbed on each end, you would be hard
pressed to fit this jigsaw together.
The spool at the top of the first,
empty of its thread, scrolls into its length,
marred by a healed-over fracture, finally
to flare into a star fruit at its end.
The second is similar, longer,
but with no spool, no break. The third
bone is pelvic. It once held something's
thigh bones in its pocket. The flat
of the pelvic bone invites me to rest
my finger in its hollow, to smooth my hand
across its descending curve. The illusion
is of a bird with decorative topknot, small
eye, open beak, with one right shoulder
feather leaning forward in a comforting
gesture. Next. Each fine, curved pelican
bone is a slim reed. They could be sewing
needles save for the stoppered eye
at one end. Filled in as they are,
the pupil, iris and conjunctiva
peer out. It is as if these remnants
of time past, all-knowing, watch
from some distance, dare us to say
what they are, name their mystery.
I imagine the artist at oceanside, searching
for inspiration. Were they jutting
from hard sand at the shoreline?
Were they unearthed in soft sand
by a stiff wind? Or did he find them
as he sat, idly digging beside his chair?
Next to the pelican bones is another
like the first but without the spool,
without the break. It is bent
into a spoon bowl at its end. There
are three with spoon ends.
These delicate three are ready to dip
jelly from a cut glass bowl that sits
on a blue cloth atop a small, red table
with gracefully curved legs and its one
drawer slightly opened; the ironstone
knob a mere shade away from the
hue of the bones themselves.
The last is nearly unrecognizable as bone.
It could be a headless bust of a woman;
bare breasts atop a long, shapeless
torso; its back slightly bowed.
I will need far more than a Rosetta Stone
to decode this message of bones.
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