Out of the gaping maw of loneliness I have found an answer:
the taste of French fries in honey mustard sauce
eaten at eleven pm at the bus stop in the pouring rain.
My fingers are slick with oil and gritty with salt
as I wipe them on jeans gone ragged and stretched –
the kind with spandex woven in “for big girls” –
and wonder about the bus that’s always always always late.
The fries taste like heaven, if heaven is a potato soaked
and fried six ways to Sunday.
And the water soaks my shoes as I reach
a greasy hand into the open air
to wash the slick off in a summer downpour,
blinking out at bright headlights reflected
on a pitch black street.
I’m not supposed to be hungry – fat girls never are.