Where the Skeletons Are

Shorts are just excuses—

to show off a little skin;

that’s alright with me.

I can never be the centerpiece on the table

in last year’s Christmas picture, nailed

to the wall of the uncle I only met once.

No one is looking at me.

I wear shorts in the summer,

the style that all girl-models wear—

with the pockets jutting out the bottom hem

like my ribs jut from my torso, trying to find

a better heart to protect.

No one sees me.

I throw my shorts to the back of my closet

Because I do not need to waste

hangar space on useless garb

that doesn’t even attract the eyes

of the people that I pass every day.

Why can’t anyone see me?

The shorts are skeletons with spindles

wrapped around my dresses and shirts.

They reach for me like people who

lived on the streets for one year too long

at the sight of a sandwich with a hunger

in their empty coal-eyes—

and they tell me things I don’t want to hear.

Look at me!

I wait in your doorway and my knees,

they ache from standing so long while

I scream for you, any of you, to see me here.

I refuse to be invisible.

So look at me now and tell me that you hear me

and that you’ve seen me all this time.