hand-me-downs and paper clowns

she has

thin white legs that run for
miles and miles
and a smile to make your heart melt

you'd never guess the
skeletons in her closet are knocking
peacefully, patiently on the door, saying
letmeoutletmeout, i won't hurtyou
i promise

you'd never guess her family's poor.
and everything in her wardrobe is a
hand-me-down, all
the stories, the clothes,
her hair color and yes the skeletons too,

most of those given to her by her uncle
who couldn't keep his belt to himself.

sometimes the rain pours
in from the roof and she spends her evenings
sitting with buckets, emptying and filling

sometimes this girl goes into the closet
she reads walt whitman to the skeletons
and together they murmur every atom belonging
to me as good belongs to you

and the skeletons are content, for a while,
until they feel

the chill of winter in their bones and plead
letmeout letmeout!

she complies by turning up the thermostat
(trying not to grimace at her electric bill
rising as the tide, as quicksand enveloping
everything she knows)

most of the time though she's
drawing spirals and patterns and shapes
that don't exist across her wrists
in the blackest ink she can get
her hands on.

speaking of hands; how brittle
they are, and well-kept as a pianists,
elbows jutting out as bone and skin

shoulder blades sharp as raven's beak,
pecking at life, pecking and croaking and
ruffling his feathers nervously, anticipating
something,
something.

she just wants something to happen,
anything