skeleton woman, you have come
surfaced with hue and cry and thrum
and waters heaving, rising scum
and dead bones clicking and clacking

clikkity-knuckles wrapping and long
dragging in waters where your white hair
stays wet, stays living and ready to tenderly
wrap what it is you have come near to usher
into the womb-waiting death.

i have hooked you, and you me,
and i have done with running away.
here…my tears for your bony tongue
drink and be filled, i ask only one thing:

that you be tender, be gentle
take them now, see the rot?
the decay, the deformities, have pity
in your mercies bury them slow
and let your waters feed them
to the seaweed and the fishes

and if you deem it good
and resurrection come to them
may it be ever in the rising of the sun
across the frozen waves
within the shell-pink dawn