Bone Swing - Clare O’Brien

We skinned the thing that killed you,

boiled its flesh for soup. The bones we lugged

high on the hillside, set up in the shape

of the great beast’s skeleton.  Inside

the wide ribcage we laid your corpse,

still mostly fresh, and packed the brazier

with fragrant leaves and branches.

When night came we lit the pyre. The flames 

blazed brighter than the moon, fanned by winds

and crackling loud as gunfire. The stink

of sacrifice fogged the air, a beach barbecue for

Gods at play. The hot winds rocked the cradle

till it broke. Blackened bones cracked and cooled.

The ash fell into the sea like snow.

Originally published in 'Dark Marrow', a US anthology from Rhythm & Bones Press, December 2018

Clare O’Brien lives in Wester Ross, where she is Poet In Residence at The National Trust For Scotland’s Inverewe Garden. Her speculative novelette ‘AIRLOC’ was published in 2024 with New York’s ELJ Editions; her ekphrastic poetry pamphlet ‘Who Am I Supposed To Be Driving?” responding to the music of David Bowie, came out in 2022 with Hedgehog Poetry Press in the UK.  A second poetry pamphlet 'Breathing Out Becomes White And Snowfall' is due for publication with the UK’s Intergraphia Books later this year, and her fiction and poetry has appeared in various British and American journals and anthologies.

Clare can be found on BlueSky at @clareobrien.bsky.social and at https://clarevobrien.weebly.com.