Our brother went out front
to pick the pieces of broken down bone
out from the dirty sands
where they’ve been
for months
bleaching to the colour
of unbrushed teeth.
Jagged needle teeth,
splinters
of shattered femur.
So many bones out there,
can’t speak of the violence.
The sun watched him all day long,
digging up vertebrae and
the half-cap broken cranium
that was a spilling bowl for ravens to empty.
The sun watched him
stowing these pieces in a burlap sack.
That sun got bored and drifted on past the mountains
to see what it could see over there.
Our brother, he almost filled the sack by then.
He rattled those bones in the dark
so he could hear the dry music coming from them.
Then he took that bag of old pain
and brought it out into the night
to scatter the remains in places
where they’d be forgotten peacefully
and not call out anymore,
the way bones do.
He sang then, when it was complete,
the songs he learned that day.
Red songs, in his voice,
makes me think of those wet hands
and the stained sand.
He’s still out there
amazing the coyotes.