Pelvis Bone as Viewfinder

   –after Georgia O’Keeffe, “Pelvis IV” (1944)

When we see sky
through hollow sockets
of skeletal remains,
bleached bones
bestow a privileged view.
In vacant spaces,
the aerial appears,
jigsaw pieces of azure
staring back as bright eyes
in a pallid mask,
watching us peer through
the same openings 
from the other side,
the mask now our own
as if it were we who are seen
looking for ourselves 
in bits of the beyond,
in portals of ravishing blue.

KARL PLANK

Karl Plank is the author of The Grace of Falling Things: Poems (Grayson Books, 2024). His poetry has been featured on Poetry Daily and in publications such as Beloit Poetry Journal, Tahoma Literary Review, and Tiferet. A past winner of the Thomas Carter Prize (Shenandoah), he is the J.W. Cannon Professor of Religion, Emeritus, at Davidson College.