The Skeleton Cafe

by Eleanor Ball

Clicking teeth keep time in the skeleton cafe. Every table is lit 

by a yellow candle, which smells like embalmed women

and cannot be blown out. The skeletons speak in the grating of bone 

against bone, skulls half-hidden behind muddy newspapers 

proclaiming tariffs on devil-made textiles 

and obituaries of the newly twice-dead. A skeleton rasps, 

four-letter synonym for skeleton? The skeletons shake their skulls, 

fingers spinning cigarettes. Smoke billows between their ribs. 

Somebody calls for a skeleton thesaurus. The skeleton behind the counter 

perches on a cracked leather stool, eye sockets glued to the pages of the latest

vampire/skeleton romance novel. He is not paid enough obols an hour to hear 

when the skeletons call for a skeleton thesaurus, or a refill of milk, 

or anything else, for that matter. He bides his time reading, sweeping, 

and buying decor: candles the color of fool’s gold, succulents 

coated in yellowing dust, mason jars stuffed with the souls

of his mother, his grandmother, and all the mothers they knew. 

He thinks, The word is lost, as the skeletons go on arguing

in the basslines of chants for the dead. In the skeleton cafe,

every table is lit by a yellow candle, and every candle 

smells like spoiled fruit and false prophets

and cannot be blown out. 

Eleanor Ball writes poetry and speculative fiction from her home in Iowa City. Her work appears in Barnstorm, Carmen et Error, Sublunary Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @aneleanorball and on Bluesky @eleanorball.bsky.social.