Bones that Speak

Clandestine composure, the cold words of the cold world of a scientist,
of love’s defining strain of dopamine, sweet serotonin bringing
what you call “delusioned shadows of emotion.”

Now you stare upon another hollow face, the mere architecture of
ourselves, this blighted bone brought down by human flaws and
silly self-sacrifice, such an act to you a mystery that breaks your laws
of rationality. Your fingers trace across a phantom cheek,
and for a moment, do you see the pleading glow of eyes now gone?

You find yourself alone with the fragmented remains of this previous person,
reflecting themselves through you the way no shattered
mirror has ever done. For a moment your finger wraps around the bone
of this dead man’s, and, in truth, do you feel it try to wrap around your own?
The work of a scientist denies all practicality in such an emotional pull.

A man waits for you, boyish brown eyes and side-swayed smile qualitative of
his inner child, an existential component yet again beyond your study.
His arm around you, you can name each bone, each binding ligament and joint,
yet like the grip of a dead man’s hold, you cannot describe your inability to release
from such a touch, a draw magnetic with the heart.