"Good Bones," a poem 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.


(photo by Chris Lawton from Unsplash)


 As someone who loves to write and read ghost stories because of the metaphors they provide about what we can see and not see, about what we can know and not know, and about what is haunting us, I love Halloween. This year Rosie and I dressed up as a prisoner arrested for "disorderly conduct" and the friendly, unarmed police officer who is keeping the streets safe from her thievery--mostly of popcorn and covers.

Now that we are into November, I know many of you are keeping the party going by participating in National Novel Writing Month. I take my (police) hat off to anyone attempting to write 50,000 words in a month. How do you do it? I've heard the key to success is "Don't look back." 

Seems like good advice for those of us trying to get a lot of writing done, and those of us walking up creaking, chilling stairs...


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