Day 633

You can see every one of her ribs. 
You can see where they spread open
like wings, where they make
a kind of bowl for the soft tissue
of her belly.  You can see
how there is nothing
beneath her taut skin but bone.
You can see how little she had
to lose.  Was she an infant?
Months old? A year? 
Difficult to know.
You can imagine her body
as a cage: her organs
small fluttering birds
trapped inside.  Now
she has wasted away.
Wasted away in the heat
of summer.  Wasted away
without clothing.  Wasted
away for want of milk.
Her wasted growing.  Her wasted
looking.  Listening.  Who
would make an instrument 
now of her bones?  A harp?
A fiddle?  Who will play
what ought to have been
the song of her soul?