They aren’t mine, these flabby folds of flesh.
I have no clue why they have chosen me
As target of their sordid misery,
Transforming me from sylph to plodding wretch.
I’ve never seen this abdomen before.
I never have claimed kinship with such thighs.
They may expect a welcome, by and by,
But I’ll delight in showing them the door.
I won’t adopt such greedy lazy cheats,
Who cannot claim my trust or sympathy,
who tell false tales about the things I eat,
Spread rumors that I am too fond of sweets.
A pox on you, you greedy, rotund pests.
Begone and then be damned, unwanted guests!
Catherine Wald’s chapbook, Distant, burned-out stars, was published in June 2011 (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry was awarded Honorable Mention in Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute’s 2011 Gurfein Fellowship Competition and she was received a fellowship from New York Foundation for the Arts Mark 2012. Catherine has published poems in American Journal of Nursing, Chronogram, Friends Journal and Westchester Review and is author of The Resilient Writer (Persea 2004) and a translation of fiction from the French. Articles have appeared in Journal of Creative Nonfiction, Poets & Writers and Writer’s Digest.
Featured Image: “Rosie the Riveter”, May 29,1943 Giclee Print Norman Rockwell
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