Listening to the news these days, it’s easy to despair about the state of the world and to believe, as Maggie Smith does, that “it’s at least fifty percent terrible.” The question is: what do we do with such observations? Do we resign ourselves to the ugliness and evil, and simply try our best to protect our children from it all? Or do we set about beautifying, building up, and doing whatever we can in our own little corner to construct a home where everyone’s children can live in comfort, safety, and peace?

Good Bones

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.

(Published in 2016 in the literary journal, Waxwing.)