Less Is No More

I have spent a lifetime turning this way
and that, posing hips and torso, tucking chin,
vainly sucking in a belly that has always
defied containment;
I tug at hems and stand just so
attempting to present a portrait
of my body — of myself —
that is other than what is,
striving to achieve an elusive idea
of desirability or, failing that, acceptance;
yet the tender, fleeting moments
of nakedness I have shared with another
have been mitigated by candlelight
and by bedsheets and shadow and
by my lover’s murmured reassurance
that I’d “be so much hotter”
if only there were less of me.
I have spent this lifetime
in earnest efforts to acquiesce
to the demands that I somehow
tame my body, rein her in — diminish her —
and yet she grows only more unruly
as time goes by; she spreads
like dandelions in cheerful rebellion
against the militant neatness of a suburban lawn
and I have grown to love her,
as she is.
in the lifetime I have left
I have no further need of lovers
whose critical gaze searches my features
for the shape of a smaller woman or
who squint and, sighing, settle
for my flowing curves and folds.
instead, consider this my want ad
for a lover who wants all of me,
a lover whose unwavering gaze
sees me in my fullness
and from every angle desires me;
a lover who feasts eyes and hands upon
the soft, pale abundance of my naked flesh,
who with delight discovers
the secrets of my every hill and valley,
a lover who demands from me nothing more —
and absolutely nothing less.

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7/10/21

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