Bones

I was briefly "skinny" in graduate school because I kept running out of food money and was too proud to ask for help. This is a slightly edited poem from that time.

when did bones become beauty’s bar?
skeleton lauded above its flesh
cheekbones sharp as sanded cliffs
jawbone sure and shaped in steel

hollow bones of lifted hands
wrist-bones angled over tea
(dainty ankle-bone revered
		in olden proper days)

china bones and saucer disks
dark bones raised from under rock
victor of the body’s life
		(in sacrifice reduced to ash)

shadows lengthen long and deep
beneath the bones of my own face
delicate as birds in rain
lifting crumbs from an empty plate