People With X-Ray Vision

thanks to Kevin

by Don Riggs

In the world of X-ray vision,
people admire each others'
skeletons --
and their own, if they have good
self-concepts.
He may admire her wide
pelvis, the way her iliac
fossae fan outward, the dramatic
rise of her iliac crests. She
may be attracted
by the tapering of his femur
only to be topped off
by the lesser trochanter,
a knob she might imagine
tickling with her dactyls.
The lordotic and kyphotic curves
of the undulant backbones
flex during ambulation, skulls
bob with varying subtleties
as they walk.
In the world of X-ray vision,
no one knows what
holds the bones together,
though there's much speculation.
The Ether,
habit,
and biomagnetic attraction
have all been engaging hypotheses
at various temporal junctures.
All they know is at some point
each person collapses
into a pile
of bones that won't cohere
any longer
except as they're rearranged by survivors
in some ritual aesthetic format:
wind chimes, marimbas, pick-up stix,
or components of aleatory alphabets
for casting in divination.

Don Riggs is a Sagittarius born in the Year of the Water Dragon. In addition to poetry, he has published essays on fantasy and/or science fiction. He teaches at Drexel University.

Updated 6/8/04