I think it’s the bones
that finally broke
me. Or maybe I lost
any bones of hope
more than a year ago
when a hospital was left
as burned and broken
as one patient who
could not be saved,
or when I saw a kid
holding her jaw together
with nothing but her hands.
That was months ago;
now I see what no food
means—a meanness
to the bone. Here is a boy
with so little fat on his body
he has become bottomless,
and as his gaunt mother tries
to soothe him, each one
of his ribs shows how it is
trying to cover emptiness,
and every hard bone
of his backbone sticks out
like the knuckles of that lost
patient clinching his fists.
