New York Fashion Week

I am not much interested in Fashion and have not watched a fashion show for years ,but
a few days ago I happened to watch a clip on TV of this event. I was appalled. It was the state of  the models parading on the catwalk that horrified me. All of them were unhealthily thin and some of them were absolutely emaciated. They looked as if they had been recently dragged from a ward for the terminally ill or that they had been victims of a particularly severe famine. As I watched one poor creature dressed in the richest of clothes, wobbling grim-faced across the ramp on fragile stick-like legs I was reminded of someone I once visited in hospital who was in the last stages of full-blown Aids. She had the same tragic,frail appearance. I am distressed to think of  how much damage these models have done and are still doing to their bodies.

How can reputable fashion houses employ and even seek out these poor  starving young women.
 

A precarious time- poem

This is a precarious time

of running about on loosened

tiles. They slide and crack.

making me shake and stumble.

Too much is flowing over me

like waves at the full moon.

when gulls gather around dirt bins.

From the beach I can see

five pelicans in the sky.

I fill my hands with sand,

microscopic jewels,

jade, rose-quartz, garnet

but bones too are buried in the sand

thin and brittle, frail as day old chickens

I walk barefoot over them.

The moon, grown large

 comes closer on the wane

The wind sweeps clouds across its bleakness.

There is sadness in the singing.

circling the cold starry night

playing with shadows 

on the shifting sand