"Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space."
- Rilke
For a toddler who chewed the crib rail,
gnawed a corner from a window sill,
craved anything you could chomp;
little girl with braces and buck teeth
fed sugar-daddies and pastini,
then chided for being fat.
For all the times you forced a finger
down your throat, for all you spewed out --
crumb cake, cheese doodles,
chocolate eggs or cookie dough;
for laxatives, spasm after spasm, food shunted out;
no nutrients to enter the cell walls.
For ova poised to cycle down your tubes
adrift from primal signal -- the uterus
deprived of the plush sustenance of blood.
For a father who went to move your car,
found an empty Entemann's box
crumbs scattered; how he raged into your room
4am, arms flailing, his voice gorged with fear.
And the mother who could not stop feeding the cat,
the dog, the girl -- lasagna, cheese cake, sweet meat.
For the imagined fat
clumped and splotched underarms, thighs,
when all the mirror held was a gaunt girl.
For a clamor of voices swirled through your head,
shrinks who said you'd always purge.
Take Prozac, Elavil, Advil, whatever,
and when you finally kept the food down,
how your starved cells rebelled; throat closed --
and you nearly died from healing.
For all of you:
every regurgitated slop,
the sweet potato in your pocket.
Thick black-haired beauty,
you have leashed your fury,
staggered under its weight.
You have shaped it into breath --
deep yogic rhythm hauled down to the base
of your belly -- halting the swirl and din.
What small miracle, your body,
blood blossoming again in your womb.
My love steady as any mother's
is stunned at what you have undone.
Stars, moon, sun, even ocean,
who cares what name we give to time.
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