Bone

    It was first dark when the plow¹ turned it up.

    Unsown， it came fleshless， mud-ruddled， nothing

    but itself， the tendon's bored eye threading

    a ponderous² needle. And yet the pocked fist

    of one end dared what was undone³

    in the strewing⁴， defied the mouth of the hound

    that dropped it.

    The whippoorwill began

    again its dusk-borne mourning. I had never

    seen what urgent wing disembodied

    the voice， would fail to recognize its broken

    shell or shadow or its feathers strewn

    before me. As if afraid of forgetting，

    it repeated itself， mindlessly certain.

    Here.

    I threw the bone toward that incessant⁵ claiming，

    and watched it turned by rote⁶， end over end over end.