The Hyoid Bone

In my hand is a hyoid bone,
staple reference of crime shows
for the way it breaks during strangulation —

It supports the tongue
and gives us
the offer of speech —

The person who once owned this one
is silent now,
choked for some reason —

You can tell by the cracks
along the horns how it was
seized from without —

crushed by some weight
as the person stared into
another’s eyes, perhaps familiar ones —

I can’t speak myself
of any one suspect, don’t know
how to explain —

I’m stuttering now, my breath
stalled inside, preventing me
from lying to you —

My brain’s gone down into a blue hole
swirling into quiet, the lights
failing as I rasp my distress —

How this bone was ripped and crushed
is a story for someone else to carry,
not a burden, really —

a small tale of suffocation
so mundane as to be
unremarkable —

It happens every day, the
free floating bone of language itself
a casualty of others’ desires.