For Your Health

When I say exercise,
you think of losing weight,
don’t you? Be honest.
Food is something that makes you fat.
Vitamins are supplements.
There’s a list—the good, the bad
—both will make you ugly.
Don’t touch.
Don’t taste.
Go run it off.

Run off even the smell.
Run off the desire,
the need.
Hunger. Can you trust it?
Once you start,
it’s too late,
so eat anything.
Eat everything.
You’ve failed.
Remember?

Food will only add
what you don’t want.
One bite and you are flawed.
Hide it if you can.
Health makes a lovely mask.

I Have Something Important to Say

There was a line of ants marching through the kitchen,
toward my last peach. I thought about snatching it up
and calling the exterminator,
but I couldn’t.

The drier buzzed during my afternoon nap.
Who set the alarm anyway?
Maybe it was the hot pink sweater
that left a neon calling card in the lint basket.

The photos in my album are starting
to fade—the edges separating
image from paper.
They are the only copies.

Daughter, Who is not Mine

They will try to divide you—body
cleanly from soul—and tell you
where your beauty lies.
No mosaic here,
no puzzle of pieces fit.
One loose shard, a fragment
of your being, will be
lovely and desirable.
They will prize and polish it
‘til it shines from wax and gloss.