Sunday Skeletons

Every Sunday I paint my nails a garish neon pink,
slip on my best polka-dot funeral flats,
and meet the skeleton in my closet for tea
at the coffee shop down the street.

He always looks dashing in his bleach-skull
and too-bright bow tie get up
and we talk about our shared loathing
of hip hop while the other patrons--
old poetry souls, he calls them between sips--
stare at us over badly-placed menus.

Inevitably, conversation dries up
like the marrow in his bones
and I nibble bird-like at a croissant
before adjusting the black veil on my head
and asking the same question I have asked
every Sunday at three thirty three
for almost six years.

"Why don't you ever leave?"

He sighs then, a rattle of ribs,
and knocks his knees together
and steeples the claws of his hands
and he whispers
"Why don't you ever let me go?"