Written by Zoe Legge
you know those bodies they found in the bogs
irish accents curling on their last exhaled breath
twigs in their teeth and thousands of years between
they speak to me:
vague ramblings, odes to misfortunes experienced before the romans fell
sometimes i wake up in the night and they’re curled up next to me like cats
i miss my own so i let them stay
maybe i put on the tv
an object of consistent fascination
a tragedy, a romcom
they can’t really laugh so their ribs just expand and contract really fast
but i can tell
they like when i run my fingers over their skulls
pushing their smooth bone into my hands
and rattling like trains
the dried and peeling skin feels odd under my nails
i feel the knobs under their ears, and the hollows of their sockets
i ask them how they died, sometimes
they don’t like talking about it though
i have a soft spot for the littlest one
it was only a few months old, poor thing
and it clings helplessly to the preserved remnants of its aged blanket
crying for a long dead mother it would not recognise besides
i hold it in my arms and shush it softly
rock it like i imagine it once was until it quietens
magical and sleeping while the adoration pours from me in waves
i wrapped it up once in a swaddle
i only caught a glimpse but i’m pretty sure its ribs were mangled
i had to run to throw up
but only shards of bone came out
