dem bones by Richard Scott

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 10, 2016   dem bones   Richard Scott

for a bottle of red a coat hanger the school gardener would make us boys a skeleton out of that coat hanger working with pliers a bunsen burner he bent metal round around through gave wire ribs a pelvis a skull it was a game the shed was hot you had to unlink his thigh-bones to make him dance he burnt your fingers the gardener took off his vest remember the smell of black-orange metal he gave you a mug of warm wine  how does a skeleton dance anyway you could feel the pliers on your thigh-bones the bunsen's flame do you still play his game boys have you seen metal glow brighter since those shed-days            Copyright © 2016 Richard Scott. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "It's hard to say where this poem came from. It's part memory, sure, but reading it back now, it also feels a bit like an incantation. Perhaps I wanted it to act like a sort of poetic-charm and invite the reader to become one of the boys I went to school with, went to the shed with, so that we would remember together what happened there. But then again perhaps poetry is just as slippery as trauma." —Richard Scott   Richard Scott is the author of Wound (The Rialto, 2016). He lives in London, England. Poetry by Scott   Wound (The Rialto, 2016)  "Home is so Sad" by Philip Larkin from "Things I Don't Miss From My Youth" by A. B. Spellman "We All Return to the Place Where We Were Born" by Oscar Gonzales Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038