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The Old Man in the House of Bone<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n He sits in his house in the dark wood<\/p>\n in the house of bone in the dark, tangled wood<\/p>\n at the wood\u2019s centre where no paths lead<\/p>\n where all the paths have been erased or grown over<\/p>\n so that no one knows the way to the house of bone<\/p>\n they can\u2019t get in, and he can\u2019t get out<\/p>\n because the way is lost, it never existed<\/p>\n and the forgotten birds scutter among leaves of silence<\/p>\n and the roots of silence have burrowed down into his brain<\/p>\n have pushed their long fingers into his blood<\/p>\n are picking at his entrails, sorting through his belongings<\/p>\n emptying him out like a cardboard box<\/p>\n a ghost in its grave, a last gasp<\/p>\n pinning him down to the house of bone<\/p>\n crumbling under its weight of silences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n \n Let the house of bone be a church<\/em><\/p>\n where you kneel and pray to nothing<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n \n In the house of bone, numbers are gathering<\/p>\n in the cobwebs behind the old man\u2019s eyes<\/p>\n a mass of them, a black clutch, scuttling in the attic corners<\/p>\n hanging by threads which they unravel out of themselves<\/p>\n and he hears the scratch and whisper of their feet<\/p>\n like a Morse signal from somewhere far off<\/p>\n like static from some long-ago burnt-out radio<\/p>\n that he can\u2019t quite interpret<\/p>\n and when they crawl out from his finger-ends<\/p>\n to tap a code on the armchair, they become<\/p>\n strings of numbers tying themselves into a knot<\/p>\n they hang themselves from the curtains<\/p>\n they flutter around the lampshade<\/p>\n and he can\u2019t count them, he can\u2019t add them up<\/p>\n they dissolve into dust, into the moon\u2019s zero light<\/p>\n leaving only the blank on the face of the house of bone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let the house of bone be a shoe<\/em><\/p>\n lying in the middle of a rain-soaked field<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n \n No one comes calling at the house of bone<\/p>\n there are no foot-shuffles on the front step<\/p>\n no yoo-hoos through the letterbox<\/p>\n or if they do come calling they come as shades<\/p>\n escaped from hell through the trapdoor in the cellar<\/p>\n wrinklings of light and smoky silences<\/p>\n that twist their way in under the door<\/p>\n to float like mote-dust, like flies around the fruit-bowl<\/p>\n and the old man thinks he might just recognise a face<\/p>\n or the echo of a gesture, or the shape of a voice<\/p>\n but even as he reaches out to touch it it vanishes<\/p>\n and he has only his own feet to look at<\/p>\n his glasses case, his empty cup, his own hands<\/p>\n lying crumpled anyhow on the table, like unopened letters<\/p>\n each one labelled with the wrong address.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n \n Let the house of bone be a needle<\/em><\/p>\n slowly threading its way through to the heart<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n <\/p>\n