Smith’s “Good Bones” is a free verse poem that consists of a single, 17-lined stanza. Using literary devices such as repetition and anaphora throughout the poem, Smith adds rhythm and sonic qualities to an otherwise free verse poem lacking set meter or rhyme scheme. The poem relies on statements and lists to drive forward the poem’s central message.

Told through the perspective of a singular first person speaker who is a mother, the poem begins with a direct fact-based statement (“Life is short” [Line 1]) immediately followed by a qualification (“though I keep this from my children” [Line 1]). These two phrases return throughout the poem, serving as the anchor for the speaker’s overall argument. Repeated in the second line, Smith’s speaker again states, “Life is short” (Line 2), reiterating this while adding an anaphoric sonic quality to the poem. Describing life’s brief nature, the speaker also touches on the various “ill-advised ways” (Line 3) one can shorten their life. While they don’t clarify what these ways are, they state that they keep these truths from their children, too.