Weight
Marc Swan
I
“My little roly-poly,” he called her
when she was two, three years old
until she was seven, and he found out
he wasn’t the dad, then it was “fatso, big ass,
little piggy,” other names she won’t say.
He still liked to hold her
late at night when everyone else was asleep.
Even today, she can’t sleep
waiting for footsteps ...
his foul breath, greasy fingertips
edging under the coverlet;
eyes glazed as he gushed
wet and hard against her thigh,
never inside. “You’re too fat to fuck,” he’d say.
II
She likes to paint pictures, eat toast without butter,
take walks alone in the countryside.
She never married, never had children.
She loves to watch children ... laughing children
swinging in the park, being lifted high in the air
by daddies beaming from ear to ear.
III
He got fat and shakes so badly
he can hardly hold the bent spoon he slurps
cereal with through rotten teeth. He steps slowly
wherever he goes, looks at women with children,
children playing, thinks about holding a child,
then moves on.
