On fire in
the afternoon,
a woman
in a shroud
is cleaning
her own skull
of its flesh;
she has
dug herself
up and is
burning in
the bright
daylight.

Polished bone
is mirroring
back what is
left of her face.
Holes are
everywhere–
eyes,
ears,
mouth–
no one has
heard her voice
for years.

Buried,
disinterred
and buried
again;
now, she
can speak
of return–
silence,
smoke,
intimidation,
incineration,
tapping bone,
bird song,
hard stone,
conflagration–
and of the
day he came
carring a
small lyre.