Darby Thompson
Foxbones

New white mushrooms — little upstarts
of volunteer nonfaunal grammar — punctuate
the patchy grass. To each (grained like yellow walrus tusk,
stained with the soil it pushed through) I say
with respect and appreciation:

o redondito                o so round
                o pálido                o so pale
                                o sí                o yes

It seems (it has to seem because
it cannot be) it seems that each one is open
in unspeaking astonishment reacting
to algo raro — something exceptional — nearby.
Where is it, what could it be? Like we do every time
we leave the house, we search for wonder.
With my sneaker toe I kick the ground that glints
(              with small brown glass fingernail clippings
(              where beer bottles broke, their necks snapped;
(              where small blue squares of glass mark
(              a time the sky busted through a car window )
and
I crouch to scrape til I uncover several
somethings not yet fully buried in earth:
¿algunos huesos? a handful of hinges,

yellowing fox vertebrae
                (o aros redondos
                                o partes pálidas)

oval oral apertures tunneled through
by the nervous sizzling energy
of the spinal wire
of the laughing red runner
of the waver of his own redbanner
of the ah zorro o redfox dead

the bones’ white mouths open now
to admit moss or musgo, to each sing
silently a single unchanging note
vocalizing a dirge for the body

the sign says The park closes after dark
El parque cierra después del anochecer
o o o but it's dark now isn't it

the mushrooms ( who know everything
about turning endings  into softness
about turning endings  intomulch
about turning endings  intomemorial
about turning endings  intorecuerdo )
ring the gravesite
                                w( o )rshipful          &         w( o )nderful
                                                                sin miedo (‘fearless, fearing
nothing’)
because the earth (theirs, ours) is always spelling
        out (spilling, spoiling) otra historia
       in the high speech of eulogy

always writing unfinished stories on pages we walk upon or
lay upon, on paper of hierba mora, the nightshade; trébol,
the clover; diente de león, the clockweed, blowball,
lion's tooth. Paper of soil, of grama, of crabgrass;
subtext of white bones sinking in black earth.

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