English archaeologists
found it at an isolated
forest site, nestled neatly
inside the skeleton’s
hip cavity -
deliberately decapitated,
says the Herald.
His lonely bones, bleached and bare,
allow us a lunch-hour’s conversation,
the newspaper
between us,
half a world,
half a day away.
His end, its brutality
desiccated, stripped and
cleansed by time and distance,
too long , too far for understanding of reasons
or allocation of blame,
distracts us from
the smaller, fresher violences
that injure our days:
this month’s argument
as empty-headed as any ancient skull,
my mobile bill,
his pointless overtime,
or last night’s soup bones,
shredded flesh stripped away,
burning to the pan,
a hiss of recrimination.
Part of the Anatomy Project