DAY 18, FEMINISM AND FITNESS - EMILY ANDERSON

A Magnitude Which Is Like Itself Alone
Emily Anderson

My torso is short. I have wide

thighs; I’m not a large person.

Have a pear, I have no rolls.

My belly is just big; I look

pregnant with thick thighs.

I have an hourglass, a technical

term for the ornamental

circumlocutions we call figures

of speech. A bit of pear could use a little

help, one end of an analogy is

elsewhere, I’m not a fat woman.

There is, in my imagination, a striving for infinite progress.

I have had several abdominal surgeries and have no muscles that work in that area.

One gets mature and starts to sink

or melt; I hold my weight & when my

imagination reaches its maximum

it produces satisfaction & sinks

back into itself, big hips and ample

rear, I have “mother’s apron,” (belly

flap) after C-sections, I’m not saying

I’m large, I’m getting just a small

muffin. I look like a sack of cats

going down the river, there’s no

crack or shaping, just half

my body I can’t stand, looks

like you’re wearing a diaper,

the bra part does not lift half

my body, I can’t stand

after a C-section, it

stretched to fit my swollen

middle, there is a gap

in the crotch, it’s clear

you’re wearing something

highly shaping, in Ovid the gods

hid themselves in LYING

SHAPES crustulum

cymbi figura (form

-fitting mermaid gowns)

& ficus comprimunt in

figuram stellarum (& pressed figs

into the shape of stars.)

The Power of Numbers Extends to Infinity

   I am 5’8 170 lbs.

      the leg part goes 5-6 inches above

     

            A very tall woman   5’10, 173

                                                                        

                          I lost 2-3 cm and am happy.

2 or 3 more:

                           1)  5’6,175, 2) 5’5 3) 5’ 5, 145 size 28

Fourteen hips.

                                   

            5’0 &100 lbs. 5’3 & pulling it down

           & putting it back up took 2 minutes.

                                    ’ ”  ’ ”  ’ ”

Size C is for a 12 year old girl

Note: These two poems borrow from various sources including Immanuel Kant’s “Analytic of the Sublime,” Erich Auerbach’s “Figura” and Amazon customer reviews of Spanx and other shapewear products.  

Emily Anderson’s writing has appeared recently in Fence, Conjunctions, the Kenyon Review and The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction. Her first book, Little Novels, is forthcoming from BlazeVox Books.  Her video collaborations with Jen Morris have been screened in Sta. Cruz de Tenerife (Spain), Philadelphia, and Brattleboro, Vermont. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently a PhD Candidate in English at the University at Buffalo.