Tendered Bones

I asked them…
please, a finger bone
a digit, a phalange?
May I have a tip of her fingers?

As I waited I wondered which one it might be,
the one she used to point with… at me…
into the sky… at sightings in a crowd?

Or the one she would crook in the corner of her mouth,
when intrigued by an insight
or visually aroused.
The one that pointed to heaven when she drank her tea.

Would it be her ring finger
that got the little wedge of chicken from her teeth,
that evened her lipstick,
or dug at the tickle in her ear?

Would it be the middle
that reset her glasses,
or that found ten thousand passions
in her hungry private dark?

What it they give me someone else?
And I wore some cab driver from Lahore,
or a nose-picking Jane Doe
on my neck for the rest of my life.

They presented me a small oyster lid box
with red satin and a gold plated clasp.
Inside was… well I’ll leave that to wonder,
I’ll just say I was very pleased.