For Going Out, I Found, Was Really Going In

Somewhat tangled in paradox,

The poet decides to seek help

From old-fashioned divination. . . .

At evening, I came

To the world’s bright end.

I threw the wolf’s bones

I’d saved in a drawer

 

And the humerus

From a small cougar

I’d found left alone

Under a piñon,

No other remains

Anywhere near it,

In the high country

Just this afternoon.

I’m no oracle,

Nothing like a seer.

I have no training 

In reading such signs.

But they’re telling me

Something by silence.

All day we were there,

My bones with these bones—

Soft, often-broken

Ribs encasing breath—

Hard, predator bones

Tossed out after death.

In capable hands,

I will be able 

To tell the future,

My silent bones said,

Only once I stop

Conversing inside,

And instead of breath 

Encase paradox—

Unbroken outside

Bones, spoken as dead.