shot glass
title
Issue # 5 September 2011
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Luke Bauerlein


The Litany of Bone

My father walks with the weight of a man who has never been in any bar fights,
never known the grace of pure knuckled snow, the litany of bone,
or dropped to his knees as the Divine come crashing
across his brow like broken glass.

And so I never found him in the backyard, with his
teeth spread around him in a prayer circle, the red beads foaming into the
February cold, staring into the eyes

of a man who had beaten him mercilessly
and without judgment,
a man not prone to violence, only curious, and brave,
brave enough to discover the intimate secrets of human touch.