After his death

In those mornings, when my brothers and I would sit,
creaky with too much sleep, to breakfast,
our Mother would lift the knife with mud encrusted fingers
and butter every slice so we could taste
the cold zinc of bone.

In those mornings, she would gnaw on one
and leave it long and white
at the centre of our table,
before returning to the dig.
I used to think she would lay down
less comfortably in the memory of bones

but in those mornings,
she could sleep for hours in the memory of his femur
and scour, hour under hour,
their soundless bed for his deaf mouth.
There was no cardiac arrest when her heart failed,
Only darkening ribs, building round a jail.