leaving the weighty camels (Friday's Sunday's Poem/Hot Actress 64)

The Hymn of a Fat Woman
Joyce Huff

All of the saints starved themselves.
Not a single fat one.
The words “deity” and “diet” must have come from the same
Latin root.

Those saints must have been thin as knucklebones
or shards of stained
glass or Christ carved
on his cross.

Hard
as pew seats. Brittle
as hair shirts. Women
made from bone, like the ribs that protrude from his wasted
wooden chest. Women consumed
by fervor.

They must have been able to walk three or four abreast
down that straight and oh-so-narrow path.
They must have slipped with ease through the eye
of the needle, leaving the weighty
camels stranded at the city gate.

Within that spare city’s walls,
I do not think I would find anyone like me.

I imagine I will find my kind outside
lolling in the garden
munching on the apples.
________________________________________________________

About the poem: As usual, I started reading it because I liked the title, but then picked it for today because of the mixed message it sends: the idea that "fat" women aren't consumed by fervor and that they may not make it entirely into Heaven -- but would come close? And the reference to apples in the last line then sends another message entirely -- implying that women like the speaker are in fact responsible for keeping others out of Paradise? The poem seems as though it's supposed to be a mollifier for anyone who considers themselves fat, but in the end, reads more as a slap in the face to anyone who's not skinny.

I didn't like the message. But I found it worth thinking about.

About the Hot Actress: Also worth thinking about? Sophia Vergara. Sweetie picked her without knowing the poem I was putting up today.

Not all crayons are created equal, it seems. (Taking Stock: The middle drawer on Sweetie's desk.)

Sweetie has a desk that I bought her oh-so-long ago to keep track of her important papers and bills and the Netflix movies and the Post-It notes I bring home from the office. There are three drawers in it -- and this is what the middle drawer is used for:


That doesn't really fully convey what's going on. It's a drawer of crayons and some markers. About two inches deep.

Mr Bunches is addicted to new crayons and markers. In every store that sells them, he wants to get a package of them. And they're inexpensive enough that we usually cave in, and he gets his new colors, and they go home and they're used to draw for a while until they're put into the drawer.

Sometimes -- like two Saturdays ago -- Mr Bunches will start getting the crayons out of the drawer, one at a time. He'll make me or Sweetie draw something with each crayon, and then move on to the next. That could go on for hours.

Also, if you look closely, you'll see that there's little to no red crayons in the drawer. Mr Bunches likes red the best and the red crayons are only rarely allowed to mingle with other crayons. And we're never allowed to draw with the red crayons. Never. You touch the red crayon at your own peril.