Bones in Boxes by Jean Wallace McKeown

Catholic children learn early –
church altars hold relics;
shrivelled saints’ bones in boxes,
fingers, jaws, toes.

When I was a child
I believed
tight within statues
were bodies,
bones and flesh rotting,

stone figures reclined
over marble tombs
were the mortal remains
of old knights and crusaders.

Soon I learned from adults –
the knights had stone hearts.
Statues just bronze over hollows.
But I swore I could hear
the saints screaming.

Jean Wallace McKeown writes poetry and prose creatively, works at a desk in a university but has also been a freelance writer for the past six years covering academic lectures, seminars, book launches and interviewing interesting people, has had creative pieces published in literary journals and online and is mother of two boys who can no longer be described as small.