ossuary: Editor's Prize Poetry Runner-up: Chloe Chen '29

within the ossuary’s crypt’s wet breath,

this architecture of ivory; calcium scaffolding.

not an elegant border, but a cage of yellowed lace,

desiccated and frail, it rattles when encountered by

gauche elbows and curious hands. it is the formal, final

deathbed of absence; the negative space

where marrow once worked in thickness and privacy.

now a residence of other tenants: infested by soot,

a home of larvae and nematodes,

a canvas, engulfed by the

graffiti of phosphorescent decay.

it offers a grid of sharp, logical edges

while its own stems dig a permanent,

tender depression into every joint and muscle.

imposes perspective, creating a polished barrier

against our raw, unfiltered bleed.

every frame is therefore an act of violence.

a sarcophagus for a moment. the thoracic basket,

the rusting grille through which our wet engines

pulse and gasp. even the conscious mind,

that flickers with momentary projections, requires the

skull’s theatre, its dome of bone, to contain

its fragile and fleeting light.

your flesh is merely a borrowed being;

a temporary loan, reinforced by the stiffer frame,

which does not think, see or breathe, but simply is:

the pure, patient, pathetic remains within your grave.