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IVORY RELIQUARY by Christine Boyka Kluge I arrange my dead selves like sacred urns on a burnished shelf - my shrine of pale vases, glazes gleaming in regiments of white. Flesh missing, each sinuous soul coils inside its new shell; they fill each vessel to the brim with emptiness. Sometimes they click their porcelain teeth as if trying to talk, or the breeze from the open door sets off the subtle hum of their desolate glass drums. They never seem to cease their muffled keening. They crave the caress of soft cloth, a feather duster’s swirl of wings around their rims. Each night before sleep, I obediently run my fingers over each clay body, remembering each lost face. Bone-colored, slick - so cool to the touch, so far from human skin. In the shadowy room, I inflate them like ivory balloons by whispering into their hollows. In return, they offer their earth-scented bowls, their yawns of of crystalline breath. © Christine Boyka Kluge « Home | Contributor Notes » |
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