A Hymn to the Clavicle
by Ron Salisbury
Clavicle, she said and I said, clavichordium? She said, no, clavicle, that little bony shelf my breasts hang from. You know, she said, the Minoan women of Knossos painted theirs bright red, like eyebrows above their bare breast eyes, so they could see exactly what they wanted. Right here, she said, the collar bone, what Billy Betts broke when we convinced him to jump off the rabbit hutch. He’d like to touch mine if he were here, if he were lucky. She unbuttoned the top three, pulled the shoulders down, the Napa sun dripping down our sides, the sweet salty sweat puddling, squeezed a lime wedge along that bony ridge, handed me a shot of Patron, tilted her head back, the black floppy hat an umbrella above a drink, her big dark glasses reflecting my approaching tongue. Right here, she said.
Ron Salisbury was the winner of the 2015 Main Street Rag Poetry Prize for his book, Miss Desert Inn and the inaugural Poet Laureate, San Diego 2020-2021. His second book, Please Write and Tell Me What I Looked Like When You Met Me, was published in 2023 by Wholon.