#29 Needles of Bone by Emma McKervey

Needles of Bone

She wonders if this is productive enough

when what she wanted was nothing

except maybe to learn how the men shoot

snot from one nostril, pinning the other shut.

It seemed unfair when all she had was her hem.

In the damp corner of a field, seeking warmth

from the heaped hay she found the bones of a bird,

more substantial than if it had been the stripped bones

of a stolen fledgling the magpies had taken 

to ease the dark hunger in themselves.

The larger bones would make a fine needle

she could not help but think, but as she worked

the gentle corpse it was not needles or pins she made,

but a chain, each eye she pierced she found herself sliding

the next bone through, it formed a line to cut across the silage.

She left it there when she rose, intending to return home.