Mathew Yates
articulate your bones
in the green of deep spring
i used to walk the railroad tracks
couched in steep woods
along the northern reaches
of the Tennessee River,
called the Cherokee
or Tanasi or Hogohegee,
called the Callamaco,
& i would lose count of the bones
of little creatures i’d encounter,
killed sometime last year,
or maybe a decade ago,
& cleaned of flesh
by the violent world,
& i would miss them terribly.
so i would attempt,
with eight-year-old fingers,
to reassemble the dead
& brittle little souls right
in the place that i found them.
being an initiate, i would crudely recreate
their skeletons: raccoons, red foxes,
opossums, rabbits, robins,
a little lost kitten –
& i would imagine their sinews
moving in my image,
shaking a fist at the trains
we heard coming & going,
& we’d wonder who could
run those things through this place
& how this place would look in real life
& i’d trick myself apart from fault
& wonder at my grace in
recognizing stolen beauty
i used to walk the railroad tracks
couched in steep woods
along the northern reaches
of the Tennessee River,
called the Cherokee
or Tanasi or Hogohegee,
called the Callamaco,
& i would lose count of the bones
of little creatures i’d encounter,
killed sometime last year,
or maybe a decade ago,
& cleaned of flesh
by the violent world,
& i would miss them terribly.
so i would attempt,
with eight-year-old fingers,
to reassemble the dead
& brittle little souls right
in the place that i found them.
being an initiate, i would crudely recreate
their skeletons: raccoons, red foxes,
opossums, rabbits, robins,
a little lost kitten –
& i would imagine their sinews
moving in my image,
shaking a fist at the trains
we heard coming & going,
& we’d wonder who could
run those things through this place
& how this place would look in real life
& i’d trick myself apart from fault
& wonder at my grace in
recognizing stolen beauty
Biography
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Mathew Yates (they/them) is a poet & artist from Paducah, Kentucky. Their poetry can be found in Barren Magazine, Epigraph Magazine, marlskarx, Memoir Mixtapes, & more. Their illustrations can also be found in the recent full-length release, Flutter, by Kristin Garth, published by Twist in Time Press. (@m_yates)
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