Poems (Crandall)/Set Free

by Rosa Neil Crandall

The Closet Skeleton

Escaped at last from its hiding place,
  It meets and defies you face to face;
It stalks abroad and rattles its bones,
  While the long-lost soul of it sobs and groans.

And people gaze as it passes by;
  They love the stare of its empty eye,
Its arching ribs, its hideous grin,
  A welcome sight is this ghastly thing.

They listen to catch the piteous moans,
  And oh how they love the rattling bones.
They nod and whisper with a smile,
  "Just what I told you all the while."

As swoops the vulture to its prize
  With eager haste the gossip flies;
"My joy, my very life," she cries,
  With her raptured gaze on the sightless eyes.

And her lips, where once were lips, close pressed;
  For the last one out she loves the best.
"Come fly with me o'er the paving stones
  That all my friends may rattle your bones."

Grieve not, my friend, that the truth is known,
  No more need you start at the stifled moan,
Or the muffled sound of the rattling bones;
  For fast and far o'er the pavement stones

Goes the hateful thing you have hid so long,
  To gladden the gossiping idle throng.
Let them have it all to themselves alone;
  Let them pick it over, bone by bone.

Beautiful things may the future bring,
  Forget the ghastly grinning thing,
With its lanky limb and its senseless stare;
  Make room in your heart for the pure, the fair.