I would like to have six days back,
one for each decade, as a minimum,
for not having to think about holding
myself inward, moving one leg sideways,
obscuring the steatopygous view,
a few days I could move without thinking,
like before I was six months old,
when my pediatrician said I was too
fat and told my mother to give me only
skimmed milk. Mom could make a meal
for four out of one can of Campbell’s soup
with water; I taught myself to bake
cookies and cakes so that some days
when there was no other consolation
I could have something sweet.
Now what would be sweeter is a day
without clenching, without waiting for
the blow to fall, like when my 90-pound
grandmother tried using a French
word for it, as if someone who sat around
and read so much wouldn’t know
what the word avoirdupois means
or how much scorn can be heaped
on one person before each evening, adding up
to at least six days’ full, no matter how
much yo-yo dieting, how much angling
my shoulders and knees out of the picture,
contracting my thighs and tilting my hips
to squash between armrests, how much
pulling myself together every day.
As a lifelong dieter and food lover, one of Jeanne Griggs’ favorite experiences on a trip to Norway was being asked if she would like caviar for lunch and replying that she’d already had some at breakfast. A traveler, reader, writer, ailurophile, and violinist, Jeanne plays with the Knox County Symphony and the Celtic Fiddlers. She directed the writing center at Kenyon College from 1991–2022. Jeanne earned her BA at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, and her doctorate at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her volume of poetry, published by Broadstone Books in 2021, is titled Postcard Poems.
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