reposting this poem which got 1st place at the 2021 San Mateo County Fair

in the dream i am picking meat off a human skeleton
it is miniature, but still anatomically correct

i am consuming the last morsels off the bones, picking it clean
and i marvel at the structure, the bony foundation that held this life for all the years–
living and breathing, it was perfectly designed to hold so many things
the skeleton of what held us

and at the same time, i’m calling his number
one digit different from my cell number, that’s how we were linked

it’s been so long since i dialed those numbers
the ones i relied on countless daily
they always got me through
but now, i try his old number and then,
another man’s voice is at the end of those sacred numbers
and i’m not surprised, was just testing

it is a confirmation of the crossing to some kind of foreign frontier
and i find myself here in a new world
with a phone number that no longer connects me
our worldly code dissolving into infinity

i’m picking what little is left off the bones
of our past
it is getting thinner every day.