You’re so skinny they call you
a witch. Your thighs are meant to
be like dough to encircle
a boyfriend or maybe just
the kid you once met selling
papers, squish against his stone-
carved belly like a good
girl’s. Every body with two
breasts is giving up her bread for
sweets and you’re just idling
at the corner with your eyes
down, arms closed, and
they are rails like the rest of
you. Alone disappears into
your gullet and you don’t grow
fatter with happiness or a kid—no,
you stay thin. So they
call you a conjurer, cast black
looks about your quiet body,
drown their needling in
your shallow curves. Each
too like a lady to watch when
you cry out, too covered in
the squalls of babes to hear.
But every now and a sliver
there comes a girl with coal-
eyes who whispers at you to
tell her where your wings
grew from—looking like she’s
fiending for witch seeds.