The Cane

Once before I was old enough
to think things carefully through,
I owned a cane
topped with the ball-end
of a human femur.

I called it my sceptre
until one day I suddenly knew
it was likely
a bone stolen
from a brown body.

Carried it with me
still, for a little while after that,
until I grew sick with it
and abdicated
the black-humored throne
in shame.
It disappeared, somehow;
I don’t know where it went,
and I can’t call it back to me
and apologize
for that trivialization
without knowing its name.

If that name is lost forever,
let me offer these instead:
great grandfather, great grandmother, auntie, cousin;
teacher, mentor, healer;
caller up of other bones;
dancer under storms of tossed stones;
Horse-Afraid, Gothalay, Kamehameha;
confessor, absolver.

I can call you by my name,
my whole name
with all the lost syllables
I can only pronounce
in my dreams.

Come back
and this time
I will lean on you
as I walk.