Bebe Cook comes from a southern U.S. oral tradition of story-telling. She has placed in local and national poetry contests and continues to write poetry to record her own rooms and moments in order to bring that tradition to the page. She enriches her writing with the diversity of gardening, photography, and working as an environmental scientist. She lives in Texas.

Marrow

     by Bebe Cook

           for Justin

If we undress ourselves, there are infinite possibilities.

I say remove your mark of society, take off your coat,

shirt and tie. Beneath skin's cast of opaqueness

there is sinew and blood. In the amphitheater of the bone,

actors wait for a casting call. I saw it once being sucked through

a metal straw from the tip of the curve, above the hallow

where hip meets spine. The iliac crest of a child.

It is unremarkable in a specimen tube outside the body;

simply a fatty red liquid—at a glance—no different than blood.

It is creation. It makes no difference if you are boy or girl,

or if your jeans are frayed. It loves life. It doesn't care about

the color of your epithelium sack, if you bow your head in prayer,

or where your bones rest tonight. Perhaps this soft tissue

inside the hollow of our bones is where we reside.

© 2008 Bebe Cook