To Celia Khumalo

There will come a day
When the fear of death will be the favorite joke
Passed amongst corpses,
And they’re already laughing
My love, please don’t be afraid, but there will come a day
When field mice play in our empty sockets
When our bones become homes for living creatures other than our egos
When time jostles our skeletons out of the composition that is me and you
Will write with us, love letters that spell I owe you eternity
If we believe in life after death
Then I often wonder why we assume the dead like coffins
When people were never meant to live in boxes
So I pray that our children have the good sense to leave us a little wiggle room
Leave us exposed like stray dogs in a thunderstorm
I will hear the breeze, but not know it as the breeze
I will feel the rain, but not know it as the rain
I will behold the sky, but not know it as the sky
Instead, I will hear the breeze and think it is your laugh returning to the hearth of my ear
I will feel the rain and think it is the pinprick of your kiss
When the rain is tender I will know that something has softened you
When the rain is violent I will know that something has shaken you
In this newfound understanding without eyes or ears or hands or lips
Our bare bones will make love in the dirt, never knowing our nakedness
Imagine, a course wind cursing through a calligraphy of weeds
In our disrepair we have grown gardens of ourselves
Sprouts of curious grass shooting from my eye sockets
Our knuckles, hard, smooth skipping stones meant for child’s play
The devilish sun picking its way through your missing teeth
Neither one of us can keep from smiling these days
The days go unnoticed and the nights go unslept
We talk with our souls through the holes in our ribs where organs once sat
Imagine, your skull in mine both reduced to grins
Both washed clean of our skins and our sins
Growing young again
Forgetting why we ever wrinkled or why we ever furrowed our brow
With the plow, the plow of anger
Become dust with me, insignificant and everywhere
For I will love you, even after your marrow has become a whisper
Your bones, nothing but the snickering of gravel
With the sunk and the spaces that are shadows
Whats behind your skeleton, laced with mine
I will tie your soul on my ankles and know what it’s like to step into a dream
You will tie on my backbone, see how bad it hurt the day you said you were calling it quits
I don’t remember why you left, or why you came back
I don’t know how many years have passed
Not really sure years passed at all
All I know is the rain falls, you kiss me like a rainfall
The sun, it bleaches us clear and everyday is a romance
All this to say we’re already laughing
There is a wedding of earthworms and pebbles
Waiting in our tuxedo skeletons, the wrong fit
There is place for our faces to lie, planted besides, forever smiling
There is a place, where we can be still and in love
There exists a place, where we can still be in love
Just two gentle skulls.
by Alysia Harris