Homely things, small everyday implements
harvested from the bones of the dead.

This stylus, made from the radial of my mother’s arm,
whitened in a dishpan of clorox,
whittled, sanded, and polished
by a cub scout son for a merit badge,
slides smoothly into my palm pilot’s waiting silo.

These crochet hooks,
golden-brown, arthritis-twisted,
honeycombed with fragile age,
recall my aunt during one long night.
You can turn wakefulness
into pretty and useful items, she told me,
for at the everlasting gates
we will be known by the work of our hands.

Those sturdy femurs in my garden beds,
uncles, grandfathers, elderly second cousins,
half-buried up to their gingerbread swoops and loops,
support bachelor’s buttons and spiderwort,
reminding me a useful life need not be aware.

Accordingly, to raise money
for worthy global causes,
sold on the internet, encryption guaranteed,
tiny delicate strangers’ bones
are smoothly irregular, opalescent or like ivory,
like gilded baroque pearls, no two alike.

I order fingerbone rosaries scented of camphor,
crafted from the bodies of child prostitutes
not yet allowed rest.