I once kicked a femur—
grit clean by the river,
white
boiled
fetched from habit
somewhere, wagging

I knelt,
sun in my eyes,
dust at edges
where a tendon once clung.

I thought, Take it home. Take it—

To bury it.
To give it last rights.

Instead:

We called the police.
They never came.

I put it—
away—

but I’d held it once,
a piece of someone.

No one gets peace.
No one.

—Augustus