beads
Image by Eric Prouzet from Unsplash
beads fall from your mouth dear
and clatter to the floor
did you think you were
leaving me with nothing? no—
when you’ve gone i fall to the ground
and gather them to me
turning them over
and over
in the moonlight
clutching them to my
breathing ribs
and putting them to my lips
see? i put some in my mouth
to clatter round the pan
of my jaw
colliding off incisors
and molars;
ricochet round
the hot dry dome
of my bone cracker
skull.