Mag Gabbert

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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.

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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.