She’s got diamonds on the soles of her shoes.
      Paul Simon
 
 

The girl on the screen takes a hard-boiled egg
  from a paper bag   a handful of carrots   cracks
 
the egg   peels the shell bare   takes a bite
  of egg then carrot   until finished   Lunch is over
 
We see blue sky interfere   sun patterns skin
  jacaranda leaves flitter the girl’s shadow
 
against brick & tile   We see tight jeans
  arms like reeds   She is still hungry   hunger
 
cramps the walls of her flat stomach
  through algebra   history   where coccyx hits chair
 
After school   she hurries to ballet where a murder
  of teenagers compliment her weight loss
 
When you ask me what it feels like to be hungry
  I say self-hatred   When you say shame is feral
 
I lie down   & weep   I have violation & pain
  locked down   until I can’t   & my world
 
corrodes   hiding & maundering through each
  day   year passing     when I hear a song
 
I think is about   perfection   women balancing
  worlds   baskets of fruit   ripe
 
& sweet   &   Chaela with her halo   leans in
  Angel   he’s singing about you
 
No   there is only so much my life can hold
  {she makes the sign of a teaspoon}
 
my bag of skin     my quarry of years   bones
  like daggers when the glint fades
 
Angel   he’s singing about you   I rub ruins
  from my eyes   unaware of rock or shine   while rain
 
falls without thought   falls without reason   &
  like a pattern hewing to the   golden ratio
 
the spiral becoming more than it ever was   one day
  I am lifted   not a story carved in stone   but alchemy
 
the goblet hewed by fire   heat & chisel—
  only then   the wine pours   like light   You ask me
 
what it feels like to be lifted   I say pure   I say love
  When you say love is service   I kneel & pray
 
Today while eating soba in chashu broth
  Ximena asks Why am I here?   {empty as a pocket}
 
cannot see Citlalicue’s stars   ancient   tossed
  across the universe     her brown eyes
 
I lean in with halo & shine
  every blink & rune     praised holy.

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