Winter reared 

a head in February 

knowing that a heart begs 

for levity 

Sporadic cyclones 

of swirling ivory dust,

in offering,

blanket the soft ache

of a doctor I’ve never met in my life 

asking if I have 

an eating disorder 

when,                                            as of a month ago, 

I do not  

 

My deflated breasts 

fresh from the surgeon’s table — 

Suspended in                                     limbo  

that God might take pity on a prostitute 

and make them acceptable enough 

 

                                                        again 

to be paid for 

 

I suppose I have lost about 1.5 pounds indeed 

Sympathies, truly, not needed 

but still

                                                         lost

in an imploding mass 

oversaturated 

with quick clicked guilt 

 

I nuzzle up to a grey, foreboding sky 

keen to seize a wink of sleep

in ice and its comforts 

—that sweet festering of forced solitude

I know so well

Until some stringent light 

peeks out over the clouds

and waves its solar finger in my face 

and the roofs on the block 

shed their sugared frost 

in favor of the usual banal

charcoaled-thatching

and my snow day 

is apprehended

before it starts