Excavations

My neighbor carries bones in her back pocket:

Airplanes, lambswool, rifles, stockings, men.

Hold a black light to her skin and you’ll see her life spangled

Like radiation shadows burnt onto concrete walls.

 

From the rear window of my kitchen,

I watch her spoon mountains of sugar into her tea,

Dig out the Alps from a ceramic bowl and drop

Them like parachutes descending to a sea

That licks the walls of her mug.

 

Yesterday and today and tomorrow she scrubs

At the dirt under her nail beds: the highlands blocking

A fleeting parade of men from running over the hills

And into the valleys of Switzerland,

Collapsing in the sloping troughs of her heart.