16 February 2021
bone journey by Rupam Baoni
there’s an art to arranging
bones, laying them together
by way of size, shape, density,
to form a human body;
you need to be careful where the
sternum crosses the chest or
the rib cage cloisters sit, bearing
the weight of what pulses
within; you need to trail blood streams
before deciding if they bear the smell of
love or human failure; you
need to walk slowly at first, navigating
the tendons or ligaments that
bind the flesh of insurmountable hunger
and of longing, weigh them all against
the number of breaths exhaled
and inhaled in one day; walk gently
upon the brittleness of the skeleton
that props up an entire bulk,
makes it look more human than it really is;
if it’s the head you’re after then tread
carefully, count all your steps within,
sometimes aloud,
sometimes sotto voce,
in keeping with the rhythms
of your measure, for should you miss
a footing you’ll plunge backwards
into an abyss of darkness; it’s a matter of
circumnavigating really – one…two…three…
four…five… and so on,
slow, ever so slow,
as if your whole life depended on it
Rupam Baoni is a critically acclaimed writer and artist. She has been shortlisted/longlisted in the Bridport Prize, National Poetry Competition, Commonwealth Short Story Prize and others. She is an Academic Fellow at the Hypatia Trust Penzance. Her poems have recently appeared in an anthology Invisible Borders. Her second collection is to be released in 2021.
