Upon Pantry Shelves
for Jackie Cox

I am a small woman,
she showed a tiny hand
incongruous with weight
she has to bear, to bare, to carry

I eat too much she confessed
connects this with
missing out on sex
other delights life has to offer

feeling fat and excluded
she’d eat and she’d drink

entirely bare, upon a pretty
Long Island beach,
she’d sunbathe until she burns

peach, pink, red, when day is done,
when night, a shawl,
falls about her fat,
sun burnt self


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2007
3:56 a.m. 02/09/07