Doug Ramspeck

Throwing Bones

Or say the old women grind up milkweed and bittercress
to make an ointment. And the stars at night are planted
like bulbs in the sky’s loam. And by day they watch
the herons turning to stone along the water’s edge,
the years a permeable skin, the cyst of the morning sun burning
its last hole into the sky. And they remember being girls
and looking out their mother’s kitchen window at first light,
hearing the day say, Here is my offering. And they wake some
mornings thinking about dry grass at a roadside arching its back,
thinking about the decades like the throwing of bones.
And they tell themselves that the tree branches brushing the eaves at night
are a divination. And they fear the hours have dark wings,
and they listen to the ardent music of the rain, the days
opening and closing their insect eyes. And each night
the wagon of the moon sits stalled in the sky’s mud, the years
so many fallen apples. Or maybe the years are like cattails swaying
with a hypnotic rhythm in a foundling breeze.

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Doug Ramspeck is the author of nine poetry collections, two collections of short stories and a novella. His most recent book, Blur, received the Tenth Gate Prize. Individual poems have appeared in journals that include The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Slate, The Sun and The Georgia Review. He is a three-time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.