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124 Full Bodied Semi-Sestina We take on pounds, heavy as cast iron, we increase. We grow substantial, fat even, and luxurious, although we tire easily, puff in effort, purr and doze. We join weight loss groups and confess and lift up wafers of diet bread, punish our tongues. What good is the human tongue if it cannot lap molasses rich with iron, fortification against poor blood? What a lift we get from a little dab, some mono-fat, mayo, or other loveliness. Won’t you join us in our lust, our great inflation of the spare tire? It is not just about what we crave or that we easily tire of ordinary fare. It’s just we’ve lit the tongue on fire. An urgent flame that leaps the join between brain and body, makes food knowledge, iron-hard fact to be visited, an experience. In command, Fat, takes on her own life, though she’s our burden to lift. Or it may be she’s simply unfit, no matter if fashion lifts restrictive notions of where women can jiggle. Fad may tire of the diamond between the thighs, impossible for body fat in the normal range, not to mention genetics, the iron-clad code we obey without knowing. A grandfather’s love of tongue sandwiches and sausage and schnapps is a club you join just by being born. How simple is it to un-join? How much must you want to lift your own children from the shackles, the iron set to weigh them down? Who wouldn’t tire with so much to bear? What prayer can we tongue to deliver us all from fat? 125 It is not even that we hate our fat. We love ourselves. We who join the matrimony of flesh. To hold our tongues begins a long divorce. Forks un-lift, we deflate like a blown tire, shouldered off-road tire-iron in hand to beat the fat. Iron will! Too tired a chorus to join, yet we lift our tongues. ...

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