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Body Algebra MAG
If you must know
I’ve sucked in
my abdomen for so
long that it concaves
like the crescent moon
and I cannot tell if
it tucks in that way
naturally anymore
all I know is that
when I was a ballerina
I pursed my stomach out
it all began when I feared
I’d lost my ribs
when mounds grew on
my chest
once a prairie landscape
houses, unwanted, built
I found some
self-flagellation in
my pocket
and punished my renegade
form, stunting horizontal
growth
But this is merely roundabout
back to your question:
“How much do
you weigh?” does not
yield a simple answer
like easy division
the algebra of the
body must be
whipped into the brain
For example:
Factor in the subtraction
of breakfast when you first
step on the scale
in the morning
meals are
standard deviation
chip off those few
pounds from the
electric numbers
take into account
the mornings, the nights,
the meals in between
all the water the body
is loath to part with
the separation anxiety
I pine for the scale
that bears the load
of a calculating mind
in a burgeoning body
gazing down at the
numbers trickling up
teetering between
double and triple digits
I talk it over with my friends
who cut their food
as Democritus would
dicing until they hit
the atoms
they rearrange the mangled
particles
until they resemble
a mosaic of organs
much like ourselves
I run my hand across
a protruding collarbone
to remind myself
why I see
more plate than food
and laugh about
what pigs we are
alongside these girls
thinking all the while
that if I should ever
have a daughter
I would tell her
to find the bone
beneath the skin
wherever it may be
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