What Light: This Week’s Poem: C. Mikal Oness

C. Mikal Oness

C. Mikal Oness is the fifth poet chosen in this once-a-week yearlong survey of Minnesotas poets and their work. The series is sponsored by Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

Scapulimancy

This is why we have two parents: all the bones
in our chest point to the heart, to your mother gone
for the weekend, and to your little friend Theo crying
at school. The noon-aide puts on music; she’s letting him
work it out, she’s letting his ribs collapse in an impossible fire.

C. Mikal Oness’s poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Shenandoah, The Colorado Review, Third Coast, The Bloomsbury Review, Fence, Puerto del Sol, and other magazines. His work has been awarded the Mahan Poetry Prize, an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award from George Mason University, and a Wisconsin Arts Board Grant. His book of poems, Water Becomes Bone, was published by New Issues Press in 2000 and was awarded the Posner Prize in Poetry by the Council of Wisconsin Writers. He has a limited edition chapbook, Runian, from Bergamot Press, and another limited edition, Privilege,from Cut Away Books.