Reading The Bones: A Blackjack Moses Nightmare

American Poetry Review, The, Jul/Aug 2002 by Zu-Bolton, Ahmos III

He swat down

on the sidewalk

in front of my home

"this ground is a footprint

of your life," He said

As he took his bones from a bag

made of snake skin

He tossed them on my paved ground,

spread them out like a map,

studied them like a book:

What he saw in those old bones

made him scream, the sound

voiced from somewhere

deep within, forcing me to quick-step back

as he leaped to his feet

ran like terror after madness

down the sidewalk of my tribe

I stared the distance after him,

then looked down at his forgotten bones,

wondering if I should pick them up,

not wanting to touch them

tho they already touched something frightening,

something standing like a skeleton

of my own bones

dressed in nightmare

waiting to be read.