What You found

Have you found the fingers
extracts taken in secret
and placed upon those trees
ones young and old
sapling, ancient
touched by different parts
sensation of a whole

Have you found the saliva
stuck between a dead hound's teeth
underneath your crumbling porch
gathering creatures great and small
wilder beast and soldier ants
marching to sticky pools
coagulating on brickwork
hidden by soft wood

Have you found the hair
tangle mane of strawberry blonde
turned low by chlorine
not quite green
but envious all the same
of that attached to living form
to scalp

And did you find the tongue
carved out of hollow, gaping lips
missing muscle for expression
mumbling in the dark
messing with plosives
missing her thrushes
the three that thrusted
through a long lost thicket

And did you find the eyes
whole, not eaten by ravenous grubs
not putrid or boiling down
to suds in soil worse off for it
complete spheres that glimpsed
what could have been
or might be still
yet not still, moving with power
days in hand

And did you find the ears
the ones that heard evenings
and mornings with infinite silence
after rock bands and barbeques
after boiling kettles
after nails being hammered
down into a house
that might have been hers

Did you find her nose
the button one that smelt awful
sensed mown lawn on the wind
from grass newly shorn
and imminent rain
baked bread and corn
inhaled bark and moss
and her children and husband
and boyfriend and brother
and mother and father
their scents a collective foot
on her one-child island

Did you find her
complete or incomplete
buried or bouncing
running or rising
ascending/descending
into nothing you knew
or could bring to mind

What did you find?

J. x