by Katy Boyer
Eat. I can say this because I am larger, thick-hipped, gourd-waisted. You are wasted,
mother-child. Eat until you overflow with salt and syrup. Eat until honey spills from your mouth,
leaking at corners like a tearing pouch. Eat until your pores are running with the blood of dates
and blackcurrants, bleeding golden-brown, maroon. Your bones disgust me. I see them under
your skin and they are hollow like rotten logs. Your body is the gravemud under the stone.
Empty mother, you are waiting to crumble into wet dirt and a thousand worms. So eat. Eat yeast
and rise. Eat soups of cream, simmer. Eat flower marrow, pollen jam, honeysuckle spit. Eat the
barren candlecolor off of your too-tight skin. Eat as rivers of milk rush past you, scouring your
headstone hips of their sharpness. Eat until the holes are filled. Eat until seeds are reflected in
your eyes. They grow for you. I grow them for you. I grow for you. Eat my hands, proffering
more to you. Eat my bones, chew them, and feel the way they pop like new peas. Eat your fresh
daughter. Sing me the gnaw of your eating until I know it by heart. Sing me to sleep inside your
mouth. Sing as you eat.