Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Good Bones
by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

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There is something so poignant in here, about seeing the beauty despite the unflinching seeing of the mess — and more than that, this knowing deep in my bones that yes, yes I could make this place beautiful and in fact, that is also part of my charge and my birthright. I have an obligation, I believe, beyond me — for my nieces, for the children I might have had, for all those unborn yet.

Maggie Smith's Good Bones was first published in Waxwing magazine in summer 2016 and went viral that fall, in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election and amid global political upheaval.