{"id":1471,"date":"2017-07-31T05:00:28","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2017-07-31T06:11:28","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T13:11:28","slug":"grave-gifts-by-rebecca-buchanan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/?p=1471","title":{"rendered":"grave-gifts by Rebecca Buchanan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1472\" src=\"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/A_skeletal_couple_gaze_at_their_babys_first_tooth._Colour_l_Wellcome_V0042242EL-727x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"727\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/A_skeletal_couple_gaze_at_their_babys_first_tooth._Colour_l_Wellcome_V0042242EL-727x1024.jpg 727w, http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/A_skeletal_couple_gaze_at_their_babys_first_tooth._Colour_l_Wellcome_V0042242EL-213x300.jpg 213w, http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/A_skeletal_couple_gaze_at_their_babys_first_tooth._Colour_l_Wellcome_V0042242EL-768x1082.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/A_skeletal_couple_gaze_at_their_babys_first_tooth._Colour_l_Wellcome_V0042242EL.jpg 1327w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 727px) 100vw, 727px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>knucklebone<br \/>\nswollen and pitted with arthritis<\/p>\n<p>a blue marble<br \/>\nsmooth but for the jagged crack<br \/>\ncleaving one side<\/p>\n<p>a lullaby<br \/>\na mother never got to sing<br \/>\nto her newborn son<\/p>\n<p>dog tags<br \/>\ndented and scratched<\/p>\n<p>a baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tooth<br \/>\nuncut<\/p>\n<p>she walks through the cemetery<br \/>\ncollecting them one at a time<\/p>\n<p>the knucklebone<br \/>\nrolls to her of its own accord<br \/>\neager<\/p>\n<p>the marble<br \/>\nis a hard lump beneath her foot<br \/>\nsullen and frightened<\/p>\n<p>she kneels in the wet grass<br \/>\nlistening to the lullaby<br \/>\nas she turns the knucklebone and marble<br \/>\nbetween her fingers<\/p>\n<p>the dog tags<br \/>\nlay just beneath the surface<br \/>\nof fresh-turned soil<\/p>\n<p>she has to dig for the tooth<br \/>\nin an unmarked plot<br \/>\nalong the outer fence<br \/>\nwhile the infant wails incoherently<br \/>\nthrough his trash bag and rags<\/p>\n<p>the knucklebone<br \/>\ngoes to the granddaughter<br \/>\nwho treasured the quilts<br \/>\nher grandmother continued to make<br \/>\neven as her fingers bent and twisted<\/p>\n<p>the blue marble<br \/>\ngoes to the man<br \/>\nwalking through the prison gates<br \/>\na reminder to hang from his keychain<\/p>\n<p>the lullaby<br \/>\nshe writes down in a neat hand<br \/>\non fine paper<br \/>\nand slips beneath the front door<br \/>\nof the heartsick widower<\/p>\n<p>the dog tags<br \/>\nshe delivers in person<br \/>\nto the legless marine<br \/>\nand then holds him while he weeps<\/p>\n<p>the tooth<br \/>\nshe keeps for herself<br \/>\nshe fills her pockets with them<br \/>\nstrings them around her neck and wrists<br \/>\ntokens of the lost and abandoned<br \/>\nas she walks cemeteries uncounted<br \/>\ngathering the gifts of the dead<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h6>A skeletal couple gaze at their baby&#8217;s first tooth.<br \/>\nCredit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images<br \/>\nimages@wellcome.ac.uk<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/wellcomeimages.org<br \/>\nColour lithograph by L. Crusius, 1897.<br \/>\nCopyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>knucklebone swollen and pitted with arthritis a blue marble smooth but for the jagged crack cleaving one side a lullaby a mother never got to sing to her newborn son dog tags dented and scratched a baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tooth uncut she walks through the cemetery collecting them one at a time the knucklebone rolls to her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.polutexni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}