Vertebrae


 Found a vertebra in the desert today.

White as the moon at noon,
chalky against the red earth.

Once it held a body upright.
Once it moved beneath skin,
beneath breath,
beneath stars.

Now it rests in silence,
a small monument
to the fierce briefness of things.

Fragile, fragile, fragile.

The sun presses down.
The wind moves through creosote.
An ancient ocean sleeps beneath my feet.

Even the sand
is made of what came before—

shell,
bone,
mountain,
memory.

Tick, tock.

The vertebra waits without concern.
It has surrendered the question.

What sense are we hoping it all makes?

The lizard on the stone does not ask.
The raven crossing the empty sky does not ask.

The earth keeps turning
through beauty and nonsense alike.

Someday someone may find my vertebra,
bleached beneath this same hard light.

I hope what came before it
was vivid.

Not perfect.
Not permanent.

Vivid.

A life of bright colors left in the rain.
Watercolors running together at the edges.
A canvas unable to hold the sky.

The bone will remain awhile.

Then it too
will become sand.

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