“Breakfast With a Skeleton”
I walked down the morning stairs
a skeleton sat at my typewriter
he was turning the wheel
trying to get the paper through
“you have to guide it through.”
I said through a yawn
he looked at me snide
his bone and marrow yellowish from decay
what are you looking at?
I thought
you’re a god damn skeleton
he took a sip of coffee
I watched it go into his jaw
through his throat
down his belly
and onto the floor
he’d gotten the paper in
and I could hear him now from the kitchen
he was typing something
“eggs?”
I called out
no response
I walked over
he was head-down, still typing
“YEAH!”
he screamed
jesus
I made the eggs— dashed with some cinnamon
I sat on one end of the table
him on the other
I watched the eggs travel through his body
and splat onto the floor where my dog ate them
“terrible.”
he said
“is that, is that cinnamon?”
what was left of his face cringed
“what were you writing?”
no response
“what were you writing?”
he took another bite of eggs and said:
“a body for myself.”
“a body for yourself?”
“a vessel for this hollow, lonely, useless, irritating,
appalling arrangement of calcium.”
“that’s what you were writing?”
“that and a love poem.”
…
“for Meryl”
“but how do you write a body?”
I asked him
“the same way you write a love poem,
it writes you.”
I had a sip of coffee
“I like you, skeleton, you should stick around.”
“can’t,
I’ve got to get an x-ray today.”
he showed me his broken arm
“you ever tried writing a love poem with a broken arm?”
he asked
“no, but I have with a broken heart.”
we sat in silence
just before he read me his body
and his love poem
I cried during both
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