Memento Mori

I found the image in the attic,

In the half-light blurred, static,

Like a votive, intensely vatic.

In a shadow box, five white stones

All shaped like finger bones

Arrange in a question mark,

A gesture beckoning a dark

Something beyond conceiving

Into the emptiness of believing.

I took it and nailed it to a wall

Downstairs, only to watch it fall,

Its glass crack, the stones scatter.

I think they no longer matter,

But I’m wrong. I see them still,

Years later. They won’t, and will.

They're like ghosts no ghost can kill.

Mushroom

It appeared beneath our yew,

A large puffball that grew 

Unseen. Then there were two.

Soft, bleached skulls without holes,

Less like the dead than souls.

I picked them up — their spongy skin

As alarmingly soft as sin.

I was frightened of what grew within.