Quello che siete, noi eravamo.
Quello che siamo, voi sarete.
What you are, we were.
What we are, you will be.
-Placard in the Capuchin Crypt, Rome
I.
The descent begins as the wind ends
and Rome dims,
just beneath the pavement
where time dangles
from the invisible hands
of tissues
tibia, fibula, femurs,
lateral, lacrimal, incus,
phalanges, clavicle, skulls
scapula, trapeziums
nailed,
slung,
piled,
hung
from walls
of stone
and bodies
of bone
an open
mosaic
of decay.
II.
Bones don’t groan
or grumble. They moan
and hum Gregorian cries
to the lucky-to-be-alive –
sacred psalms of sockets
and skin, macabre drones
of melodic tones woven
into cartilage and echoes.
III.
At the end of the hall,
a dusty mound
cradles the remains
of a crumbling
mother’s child,
its eyes wide
with warning:
seize life
but bones
are poetry.
Ana Reisens is a poetry farmer. Born and raised in the Midwest, she now tends to her crop in the sun-bathed soil of Spain. She was the recipient of the 2020 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, and you can find her poetry sprouting in The Belmont Story Review and the Fresher Press anthology Winding Roads, among other places.
