On A Diet

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Eat all you want
but don’t swallow it.
—Archie Moore

The ruth of soups and balm of sauces
I renounce equally. What Rorschach saw
in ink I find in the buttery frizzle
in the sauté pan, and I leave it behind, 
and the sweet peat-smoke tang of bananas, 
and cream in clots, and chocolate. I give
away the satisfactions of food and take
desire for food: I’ll be travelling light

to the heaven of revisions. Why be 
adipose: an expense, etc.,
in a waste, etc.? Something like
the body of the poet’s work, with its
pale shadows, begins to pare and replace
the poet’s body, and isn’t it time? 

© William Matthews