weight loss


                      When I was small, Mom was thin. A nurse slurred, “anorexia nervosa.” A perfect drag name.
                     My therapist says I deflect with humor, calls it my forcefield from feeling. I retreat.
                     A lonely thing: birthday dinner at a steakhouse. She pays the $49.99 buffet price but doesn’t eat. I’m a carnivore. I eat for two. I gain weight. Her circumference tightens. She loses the third dimension. The wind picks her up like a plastic bag.
                     I wish I had folded her into origami, stapled her to the ground so that she would stay.