Each Morning She Runs
by Rosemary Moeller
She lovingly strokes her living bones,
right phalanges on left ulna
with two bare layers of soft fuzzy skin between.
She slides her hands along the roundness
of her ilium, her hips smaller than
her middle-school daughter’s.
She sees her clavicle in the mirror,
floating above her curved ribs that feel
so protective, defending her against
inner needs of wild organs to be tamed,
defending her from outside demands.
She fingers her ribs individually, thankfully,
and enjoys rubbing her back against
the side of the bathroom door.
She’s pleasantly aware of the entire rounded scapula.
She wouldn’t have their lines tattooed onto her skin;
not that crazy, or brave or artistic.
She’s less. Just a plain person,
no one special. She runs hard,
dreams of flying, but knows her bones aren’t hollow
like the sparrows she listens to before dawn,
running, working her body hard,
living close to her bones.
Rosemary Dunn Moeller has had poems published in Patterson Literary Review, Broadkill Review, Rockhurst Review and many others. Her poems have been anthologized in The Scandalous Lives of Butterflies, Memory Echo Words, Thunder Storm and others. She farms with her husband and writes to grasp onto flowing moments in time and connect to others living in the middle of nowhere.