Bones can break

Bones can break, snap, fracture or crack.

The calcium and collagen scaffold,

That keeps our mortal flesh mostly vertical,

Is vulnerable if smacked

By sudden hard impacts

And the fact that these

Are relatively rare

Is due to trust, fear, luck and care,

And the navigations

That we everyday apply

As we go through

Our physical situations

Using memorised maps

Stored in squishy on-board computers,

Contained in sometimes hairy

Bone domes balanced on

Spinal columns made of bone,

At the centre of our skeletal bone homes.

So, we are very inflexible.

We can’t squeeze through

Small holes or cracks

Or minute apertures

Like other creatures

Who lose their shapes

And get them back.

If octopuses could laugh,

Oh, how they would chortle

At such silly rigid mortals

And their submarine cephalopod merriment

At the results of this terrestrial experiment

Would echo around

Oceans and seas

As humans stumble around

On the ground

Breaking arms, legs, necks,

Fingers, ribs, toes and knees.