By Marie-Andee Auclair
They want her
full as they are
caryatid
or Botticelli chubby.
Have more, they say, it’s good,
it’s good for you, you
eat like a bird.
Maybe she wants
to be bird, to glide
loop and land
graceful,
to take off again.
They are generous with advice
these earth-goddesses, well-rounded
voluptuous, keen observers of what food
covers, or not, whose plate.
She won’t answer that she likes
elbows sharp
shoulders Etruscan
limbs angular
spine supple.
I count your ribs, they mock,
as if conspicuous bones
were rude
indiscretions, better buried
under a zaftig cover.
Group meals would be convivial
except for weighing glares
and the measuring
of distance
between the forking roads
to plenitude.