is the same as what's gathering behind me

and the bones I am grabbing for in my fist

are the bones of my race

are the bones of the ancestor I am to myself

and I am a man of flesh and hope who is tilting a bottle

        to his lips

and I will drink the light on

and be remembered like this

poised at the tip of my own antique tongue

for I am a man whose death holds him up with bones

who has lived thirty years, each one now tumbling down

        its own brown curve

who has just been given his legs

who no one has been able to ride yet

and I have walked far on feet made of the dream I am

        trying to remember

hauling these eyes around

packed inside every inch of me an animal, an animal

        packed with me

does life give off the faint odor of luck today?

or is it a small box of wounds delivered and refused

       year after year?

whirlwinds released in the tiny arenas of ankles and

        fingers?

an infant's unfinished head?

milk up to here?

no it is the grin of a man on the bottom

who resided where the night sky is a well and his head

        a bucketful of drunken stars

no it is only me and my death who is holding me up for a

        little while with bones