PUNK POETRY: Edges by Louise Wilford

Edges

My body’s edges have melted like wax.

First, my skin lay soft and plump

over my bones.

Then, as I grew older,

the shape of tibia, fibia, femor, patella, spinal column, ribcage, scapula, clavicle

pressed against the tight skin like rocks pushing through the dirt.

Later, that cover was stuffed like the fat cushions

on my grandmother’s bed, curved and firm,

sex spread across my chest, my hips, my arse, my taut round calves,

until my belly bulged like a medicine ball

then emptied and shrank back, loose as a deflated balloon.

Food became my greatest joy.

My flesh was a plastic bag pushed smooth from the inside

by the pressure of dimpled fat. I ate as if food was life itself,

ravenous, insatiable.

As I grew larger, I became unseen.

No one noticed the gorgeous mounds

and hidden crevices, the golden hairs glittering along the horizons

of my body. No one valued my manatee hips, my bolster breasts

resting on a mattress midriff.

And, now, my body’s edges have melted like wax,

grown into layers that I wear like a winter blanket. I have shrunk

as I aged. Some parts are sun-dried orange peel

and others drooping flannelette. I no longer look like a woman.

I am liquid, dissolving into a puddle that will at last evaporate,

invisible,

into the empty air.

--Louise Wilford