The Charnel House by Carla Toney

Shortlisted for the OSP Poetry Competition

In the charnel house

by St. Sebastian’s chapel

on the French rue du vin

through the Alsace,

skeletons frolic helter-skelter

in their iron-barred sepulchre.

A metatarsal keeps company

with a mandible, tibias

consort with clavicles,

a patella hobnobs with

three thoracic vertebrae.

We wend our way

through grand cru vinyards

to the medieval walls

of Dambach-la-Ville,

pass the Gate of the Two Keys,

a fountain with St. Ursula,

martyred virgin, and the bear,

to return to the pension where

we’re staying. Spoons,

we curl together in a

French mid-sag double bed.

I turn to face you

and see myself and you

clearly in this brief reprieve

before we couple with

the contortionists in

the crypt. A skull,

I kiss the bone

beneath your skin.

On a white queen carved in ivory in the thirteenth century C.E.

How can I begin to tell you what I’ve seen?

And would you understand my meaning?

Century upon century I have watched without sleep

the power plays of bishops, knights and kings.

Would you believe me if I spoke of endless greed

and foolish oaths of allegiance?

Century upon century I have watched without sleep

the power plays of bishops, knights and kings.

Whole armies of pawns have fallen at my feet,

dying – for no reason.