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Content advisory: This poem describes an eating disorder.
Her hair is the clump of weeds the nurse lifted from the riverbed
hissing, Haven’t you thought what all this is doing to your mother?
And her eyes are geodes glowing through her skull-fissures.
And her bones are an inventory she checks every hour.
And her elbows are gargoyles’ faces, each grey crumpled grin.
And her thoughts are foxes that slip through the gap in the fence
into her garden at dusk, tethered to the old paths of desire.
And her heart hunkers alone in the crawlspace for hours.
And her hunger is an illicium mapping the striking zone.
And her mouth is a chamber of parliament debating how much
is the right amount to eat, the right amount to say.
And her throat is a ghoulish workshop glittering with rust and gold.
And her skin ripples like sand as she stumbles towards
the horizon–from where she looks back and marvels
at the others eating, breathing from one moment to the next.