Star On the Brink

The anorexia is not conspicuous,
being half-submerged - just
breaking through.
She’s a powdered mirage,
her skin a hyaline sheer
drawn over a necklace
of clavicle bones.

She knows her chest
is returning to childhood,
she wants to shelter there,
to be her own child.
Her small breasts
are burgundy nipples,
buds made more prominent,
anchored as they are
to shipwrecked ribs.

Designer bling distracts.
Cameras whir, she poses,
hand paused on a hip denuded;
not resting there,
but stealthily carrying
a pinch of flesh toward a spotlight.

We collude with her,
applaud the way
she decorates a condition.
We know her emaciated beauty
is a mutual hoodwink.
We know that the closer to death
sexuality becomes,
the more rapacious our appetite;
the more we will wail,
as she slips
through our hungry eyes.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2021

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