SUNDAY POEM

MY SKELETON
by Jane Hirshfield



My skeleton,

you who once ached

with your own growing larger



are now,

each year

imperceptibly smaller,

lighter,

absorbed by your own

concentration.



When I danced,

you danced.

When you broke,

I.



And so it was lying down,

walking,

climbing the tiring stairs.

Your jaws. My bread.



Someday you,

what is left of you,

will be flensed of this marriage.



Angular wristbone,

cracked harp of ribcage,

blunt of heel,

opened bowl of the skull,

twin platters of pelvis–

each of you will leave me behind,

at last serene.



What did I know of your days,

your nights,

I who held you all my life

inside my hands

and thought they were empty?



You who held me all my life

inside your hands

as a new mother holds

her own unblanketed child,

not thinking at all.