We keep the finger-bones of saints
in holy shrines, yellowed joints
laid out on purple velvet.
And the faithful come, 
pressing their foreheads
against the glass case, 
breath after breath fogging
the mirror of their prayers.

So how will we worship the thigh-bone
of a great bear, preserved
for millennia in a dry cave?
Broken at both ends, it is a flute,
three holes punched evenly 
along its brown and hollow length.

Someone helped this bear 
to find an honorable death, 
then fashioned its femur
to sing of rock and ice, 
and of the hot blood 
blessing his cold hands
as he lifted its warm flesh
toward the stars of an ancient sky.

If we would call bear home,
we must leave this relic 
in the cave, then sit
for years in its mouth
until the bear's rank breath
courses through our bones.

The lizard on our sidewalk 
has no tail again; by tomorrow 
a new tail will be budding 
from the blunt stump, while 
in the yard's tall grasses
ants will share the piece
our cat abandoned.

Each month the moon is a lizard,
angles of sunlight biting it down
and giving it back until someday
the sun goes dark.  

If my limbs were stars
they would burn across light years, 
their fire still living
no matter when they sputtered down
to bone and ash;

but now I guard this lizard 
who plays dead between my feet,
the light already shining
from its wound.