Stevie Edwards

WEIGHT WATCHER

I spend $23 a month to access a phone app
where I enter every item I eat,
and it tells me I’ve eaten too much. Today,
a coconut-milk yogurt, two cups of coffee
with oat milk and Stevia, a vegan spicy “chicken” sandwich,
with vegan “mayo” and “cheese” and a Cherry Coke Zero
and two slices of multigrain bread. It’s only noon
and already it says I’ve eaten too much for the day.
Tonight, after a poetry reading, I will roam
the streets of Knoxville searching for a restaurant
that makes something so delicious it’s worth the guilt
of lying to the app about its secret splendors,
only telling it the vegetables, leaving out the carbs and fat.
I am supposed to be watching my weight
like my grandmother, like my father,
supposed to be narrowing myself
into a smaller dress. I wear a floral wrap dress
that shows a little leg. The fabric hugs tightly
to my mountains and valleys, my bosom
accentuated, waist minimized. My legs are muscled
from walking, the legs of a woman with a thinner
midsection. I am trying to trick the eye, to direct its attention
to the parts of me I cherish. When I think of happiness,
I think of growing wide and heavy, eating ice cream
until my second dessert stomach is filled
and not worrying about thickening.

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