Eleanor

Her pearls were set to choke her,

The strand biting into the flesh

that had fattened over time.

It was hard for Eleanor, the “pretty one,”

To slip on the icey surface of that epithat

And not watch her massive body

Come crashing down.

Every day, brown pocketbook cramped

in her armpit, red lips painted thickly

With a shaking hand,

She went to the bank, the grocery store,

Waiting to hear what hadn’t been said

In a string of forevers.

She wasn’t pretty anymore.

She knew that much.

But it wasn’t the knowing,

It was the holding it so close,

it could become a part of her–

The entirety of her large

Frame and soulful eyes–

Because maybe pretty,

She thought as nobody

Whistled her way,

never should have been

my point in the first place.