An Idea

The first time I saw, it
was in Care and Keeping of You:
paragraphs on periods, illustrations
of adolescent bodies, bullet points
about breast development.
I was nine and liked my toast
with extra butter,
my apple pie à la mode, and
shoveled in food at the dinner table, but

one day when I drove
into New York, I saw jutting
blades, spines, clavicles, shoulder
back, head up, strength—after that,
it was everywhere: online,
in a video, hip bone
and ribcage protruded
from under a draped sheet
of skin, like statues
waiting for the museum
to open. A ping-pong ball
skimmed the hollow
of her stomach, scaled
the abdomen
with momentum, tumbled back
down to the hip, over and over;

inside, the germ
of wishing that I could stretch myself
into a sinewy string,
skin wrapped tight around bones
like an unforgiving bandage.