Animal Charcoal

What happened to the femur of that wet weekend when we walked and walked until our legs buckled, our backbones cracked? Where is the hollow cranium of that last day I saw you, the delicate radius and the ulna of the Spring Wednesday you vanished, finally? Where is that rib, the one you hacked from my side that week we lay like animals?

Where is the shallow grave you buried it all in? Did you bury it all? Did you boil the flesh off our bones downstairs in the kitchen in the red pot we use for stews? Did you pack our greasy bones in a suitcase, take a train North, throw them all in the bins behind the shop, or just leave them out for the dogs to nuzzle, to bury, to exhume at some later date?

No, I know you.
You are waste-not-want-not.

I know you.
You would have wanted our waste to be useful.

I know you.
I picture you cleverly flogging our bones for two bob and a lie to the suppliers of animal bones bound for that shed on that Greenock dock.
Our cold bones will be burned to charcoal, calcified to hide the raw from the sugar to leave the white and the sweet.

Yes, I know you.
You left our deboned flesh to rot in the sun in our garden like that dead lion on the syrup tin, to become a hive for bees to make their honey in.

I know you.
You saved our teeth for bracelets and our vertebrae for soothsaying purposes. I can see you smile to yourself whenever you write “sugar” on a shopping list or when you stir us into your morning tea or sprinkle your oats with a memory or two. Only pure thoughts in your head, thoughts as white as sugar.

Oh yes, I know you.
You are sugar and spice and all things nice, aren’t you?
Until next time.
May your teeth rot.

©Gérard Rudolf

Commissioned by Alastair Cook

The Filmpoem 'Animal Charcoal' can be viewed here.