My students are inspired to read
more poems aloud if I bring
frosted animal crackers to class.
All well and good for them,
they are not scouring the perimeter
of the grocery store lately,
choosing only fresh produce,
spinach and bananas
for sustenance.
They do not know that
I have removed the map
of interior aisles from my
shopping itinerary,
undone my bonds with
sugar and fat, so that
even the innocent glance
after snacks in aisle nine
causes guilt I may need to
confess
to someone,
my sister perhaps,
“Is there a nutritionist in the house?”
No answer.
I grasp firmly the airtight foil
bag of pink and white safari shapes.
Animal cookies with rainbow sprinkles
stare innocently at me from a
faraway land,
a past to which I cannot return.
I read the serving size and calorie count.
8 cookies, 160 calories.
20 calories for one soul.
I think,
not too long or hard,
cut the foil,
drink in a wave of sugar air,
only I could love this much,
try to decide between pink
and white.
Will they taste different?
I remove a single
white iced mountain goat,
hold him,
smell his head                                                                                               
and indulge.
He travels the lonely caves
of my esophagus,
to a pit where I think
I hear him land.
Growling, you would think he is
a herd.
But no, his
is a solitary fate.
Delicious.

© by Gretchen Friel.
Used with the author’s permission.