Just Wondering

A caged bird sharpened its beak
on cuttlebone.

Did it wonder about the cuttlefish,
decomposed, washed onto a beach?

Was it waiting for an artist to carve it
into something new and beautiful?

Maybe a mould for a brooch or pendant —
or a bird.

Kim M. Russell, 6^th April 2026

It’s Quadrille Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub; De is our host and we are ‘Writing Down the Bones’ in quadrilles, those poems of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), using one word provided by our host.

Today, De wants us to use some form of the word bone in our poems. She has given us some ideas of bony words and phrases: boneless, small/large boned, lazybones, herringbone, boneyard, bone dry, skull and crossbones, wishbone, trombone and funny bones. She has also given examples of poems by Carl Sandburg, T.S. Eliot and Mary Oliver.