The Cadaver Bone Graft in My Mouth Speaks

Bite the inside cheek when cast-off memories
of what’s-left-undone boomerang back and leak
into the skull’s cavities like a busted well.
Rhizomes, breaking through bricks, refuse to take root
or give solace. Lie in an open field still fresh from tilling.

Die from infarction, a cold heart cracked
by water from a hot tap. Suffer infection
with curt words, like sepsis coursing
through capillaries, touching every cell.
Lie in windless snow beneath a copse of pines.

Lie on stainless steel. Consider each meal the last,
not knowing if it has time to fully digest or will be
picked apart in autopsy, revealing recent history.
Before that, lie in a canal blooming with willow tufts.
Be purified, after being putrefied, after being petrified.

David A. Goodrum, writer/photographer, lives in Corvallis, Oregon. His poems are forthcoming or have been published in Tar River Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Passengers Journal, Scapegoat Review, Wild Roof Journal, Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Additional work (poetry and photography) can be viewed at www.davidgoodrum.com.