American Life in Poetry

The paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe taught us a lot about bones in the desert, but there’s more to learn, and more to think our way into. Here’s a fine poem by Jillena Rose, who lives in Michigan.

Taos

Bones are easier to find than flowers

in the desert, so I paint these:

Fine white skulls of cows and horses.

When I lie flat under the stars

in the back of the car, coyotes howling

in the scrub pines, easy to feel how those bones

are so much like mine: Here is my pelvis,

like the pelvis I found today

bleached by the sun and the sand. Same

hole where the hip would go, same

white curve of bone beneath my flesh

same cradle of life, silent and still in me.