so when the attendant, anonymous in a macrocosm
of microphones, asks fat girl if that completes
her order, fat girl adds a McFlurry,
finally free
from shame’s ballet in her throat.
fat girl pulls to the window and chitters
like a murmuration of starlings.
They both know fat girl can’t afford this meal—
fat a currency, the nickels and dimes of a kilogram
and fat girl wealthy already—
but when the attendant hands fat girl her bag
they speak only the sticky sap of thank you-please,
and the world sweetens like soft serve.
fat girl returns to the uptick of traffic,
shucks her burger’s wrapper like a crinoline slip,
reveals the golden wheel of bun beneath.
Yes, fat girl loves herself, too. In the mirror,
fat girl sections herself into flavors.
She cups her stomach like a soy-ginger flank,
brushes her biceps and imagines the marbling
as wagyu steak. Love, too, is hunger
fat girl sings to her steering wheel
then trowels a cautious nail through her reckless teeth,
uproots a sesame seed.
Oh, fat girl—
you are perfect in your longing.
Who hasn’t wanted to be filet mignon?
To melt, in buttery love, on a belovéd tongue.
Diamond Forde is a PhD candidate at Florida State University. She received an MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. She is a Callaloo and Tin House fellow. Her work has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, BOAAT, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her manuscript, Unlocking the Door, was a finalist for the 2019 Georgia Poetry Prize.