“Fat Studies” by Colleen Abel

A piece by alum Colleen Abel (poetry, ’04) appears at phoebe:

The word deviant. A lovely, leering word, its two keening e sounds and the snap shut of its final syllable. You would never guess this body harbors such linguistic loveliness. This deviant body. I move it around during the day, along the asphalt, up the stairs. I tend to it in the shower, imagining that I am a gardener with a vast acreage to water and weed. I walk the body to work. I search out eye contact, but all eyes deviate. Look at me, I want to say. What my body says: don’t.

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