THIN
It is chill and dark in my small room.
A wind blows through gaps in the roof,
piercing even the eiderdown. My skin
goose-pimples in front of the cloudy glass
though there was scalding tea for dinner
with an apple. I'm cold to the bone.
I don't sleep well either. My hip-bones
stick in the foam mattress, and the room's
so empty. My sister is having dinner
with a boy. Awake under the roof
I watch the stars bloom heavily through glass
and think, how shatterproof is my skin?
I doze till six, then drink semi-skim
milk for breakfast (the bare bones
of a meal) before nine o'clock class.
It's kind of hard to leave my room
for the walk to school. No roof
over me, and eight solid hours till dinner-
time. All days my dreams of dinner
are what really get under my skin,
not the boys. My tongue sticks to the roof
of my mouth again in class. I'm such a bone-
head! And my stomach's an empty room.
My face floats upwards in a glass
of Coke at lunchtime. One glass.
I make it last the whole day till dinner:
hot tea and an apple in my room.
My sister seems not to notice the skin
around my mouth or my ankle-bones.
If our parents knew they'd hit the roof
I suppose. My ribs rise like the roof
of a house that's fashioned from glass.
I might even ping delicately like bone-
china when flicked. No dinner
for six weeks has made this skin
more habitable, more like a room--
or a ceiling that shatters like glass
over those diners off gristle and bone.
This skin is a more distinguished room.
--Catriona O'Reilly
For too too many of the women I've known.
