Fat

Maybe I shall get fat.  Maybe I shall
grow and grow, until my arms
are thicker than tree-trunks, soft
as dough. Plump and shining cheeks,
a belly that flops from my front
in heavy folds. My skin will cling
to my knuckle-bones, kneecaps,
whilst all around them flesh rises like bread.
A form made of circles, everything
below my forehead stuffed and bulging,
creased like a pumpkin, full as an egg.
And I will expand, and fill the space
with my own landscape, the flat plains
of my breasts, cracked with silver-white splits,
ravines where the skin has stretched,
the unquiet ocean of my thighs, rippled
and moving in slow, stately tides.
The seed of my belly-button a quiet cavern,
my vulva guarded by the jealous flesh-folds,
a hidden fissure, a seam of shining ore.
And I will bathe with a sponge on a stick,
and wear shoes wide as baking trays,
and clothe myself in tents of coloured silk,
and absorb the looks I get from strangers
at the swimming-pool with equanimity,
and lie back, displace the cool blue water
with my astonishing mass, and float.

Beccy Pert

If you have any comments on this poem, Beccy Pert  would be pleased to hear from you.