Bound to Bones

Intro:

“I know they were killed violently and yes, I do whisper things to them. I do ask for help,” said Dr Raquel Fortun, referring to the bones of people killed extrajudicially, now laid out on wooden tables. — The Straits Times

By Vincent R. Pozon

The room is bright in a way that feels rude.
Light pours down from the ceiling, robbing
bodies of the shadows they once had.

Arranged in anatomical order —
skulls at one end, ribs fanned like wings,
bones unearthed, now here for questioning.

They are seated on a bench, watching,
at times murmuring among themselves.
They see her peer through their bones.

Masked, her nose an inch from the remains,
they watch her face, catch her brows furrow,
“I wish I could tell her what happened.”

One dares another — “Make a sound,
make her hear from the heart not there.”
“Look at the sunlight on that skull.”

“I would hear something fall to the floor —
a very small object, like a button, a coin.
And of course I’d look… and there’s nothing there.”

Nothing but the sigh of air-conditioning.
They watch her gentle hands, and wait,
but the room exists outside of clocks.

“Look,” one says, “she’s whispering to a body.”