Autopsy

The bones are bleached in desert’s hot wind.
A large hole, centered in the back of the skull,
seems to indicate an unnatural occurrence.

Vultures still try to pick out marrow
but bone is all that’s left.

Fragments of a sock
still clings to a stick of ankle.

Mountains rise in the distance;
Perhaps that was the destination,
before the cruel blow.

Scorpions gather round the mystery,
as if a new ancient ruin has been found,
their stinging tails rise up in salute;
a photo developed in poison.

A crow glides in with
a soft landing onto the chest cavity;
the black against white bone,
a striking abstract rendering.

So what brings the being to this end?

Drugs, money, infidelity,
all could be the answer.

And maybe there is no answer,
just another soul, lost in the broadness
of life.

The sun begins to set
over those distant mountains,
where the daily routine doesn’t change
with this find.

But it seems the bones became more important
stripped of flesh, as desert creatures,
crawl in, seeking shelter from cold nights.

Worthy was this life, after death,
after all.

Jim Senetto about Jim Senetto

My father was quiet; loving, provider but quiet…I never knew a grandfather, his side, or his brother lost at 28 and I was told not to ask. So quiet I was…me, the quiet one, second echelon in a group of friends…quiet in the confessional booth I was brought to…why tell a stranger, in a dark booth sitting behind mesh, my woes, thinking it just might be his woes were worse than mine (I’ve later learned, some in collars should have sat on the other side of that mesh window, confessing). I was drafted in ’66, taught how to kill strangers and my mouth began to question why and with some friends now dead from bullets of insanity, I became alive, vowing never to be as quiet as my father. He had his reasons, I’m sure, old school and all of that, but I had to break the chain. Art, photography, music, poetry is my voice and it’s all fair game…say it loud, some will listen and that is good enough for me.