Bone White

Ryan Di Francesco

machines move through the frozen guts

of the empty / place / while people scavenge

slanted streets as fog lifts

off the lake / like an Earle Birney line /

gleaming through the downtown

dust of Vancouver’s daybreak

smeared with syllables / pushed out

by rusted / wrinkled mouths / fenced

through outstretched shadows

as factory smoke rises / like these discarded

weeks / dropped into 8 a.m. frost / time and

again / and again / crackling / like fish at the market

tossed onto ice / so bone white / returned

to their cardboard box / perfectly

AUTHOR BIO

Ryan Di Francesco is a Canadian writer and teacher with a BA in English Literature. He’s the Editor-in-Chief of Shadow and Sax, an emerging literary magazine, where his poetry and short fiction have appeared. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Pit Periodical, Ink in Thirds, Bicoastal Review, Bitter Melon Review, Rawhead, SHINE Quarterly, SQUID Magazine, Azarão lit journal, The Orange Rose, The Amphibian Literary & Art Journal, The Page Gallery and more. His nonfiction and essays have appeared in The Toronto Star, The Hardball Times, and elsewhere. He also co-wrote the indie film Streets of Wonderland, which won multiple festival awards.