Mag Gabbert

Mag Gabbert



The Dream of Calories

Today’s fad diet is called “intermittent fasting.”

Or, one spicy crunchwrap supreme and two whole cheese quesadillas scarfed down.

To make myself sick.

In the shower, I let the water numb, then scald my skin. So I don’t have to feel my body.

Haven’t had sex in three weeks.

The man I was sleeping with texts less and less frequently, says I burn through people too quick.

Like energy, we are an event—not “a thing.”

So few kisses to punctuate this static.

Even my poems all seem strung-out or too big.

Just one lip could consume me. One breath: a way of happening, a mouth.

I turn the water on so hot I could melt.

Like butter, a big waxy slab sculpted to resemble a woman.





MAG GABBERT is the author of Sex Depression Animals, which won the Charles B. Wheeler Prize in Poetry. Mag has a PhD from Texas Tech University and currently lives in Dallas, Texas, where she teaches at Southern Methodist University.