THE CONVERSATION

She squatted there

On the bench.

Big. Her name wasn’t

I mean isn’t

Maud.

In eighties parlance

she would be described as

Husky (that’s from Sears)

Plus (attached to all the numbers)

Full-figured

Or, should Maud be an intrepid teen,

she could just shop

in the section called

MISSES.

——-

People aren’t named Maud anymore. Mostly.

The modern United States is full of us

big-boned gals, Mauds

shiny in our skin, embarrassing

no, embarrassed

when undressed, even slightly

—

There’s medicine now

People tell us but

The us never left, never wasn’t there.

The us is a core that is

touched by but not changed by

the cranky panties

clinging to us in angry visible ways

The lifetime of hormones and

Anatomical bullshit that

changes and, we’re trying to be discreet,

but

Trying, trying to be ourselves when

the hormones and the organs

decide to do what they do

(And they will always do what they do)

——-

She squatted there

Waiting

On the bench. (Maud, not Maud)

Sweatpants, red-pale skin

Twiddling a foot

Fully human and loved and

whole. (We think?)

Not wanting to be seen as a size

Or the cranky undergarments

unmentionables

britches, panties, briefs, whatever

In a past time, nothing plus linen shifts.

(As a woman, a Maud, uncomfortable

for a certain week,

every month.

The curse of Eve, we believe,

and so,

the cranky, crunchy,

stained and uncomfortable

britches. Or panties.

A legacy that feels like a curse

But we try so hard

not ever to show. )

——

Peroxide will remove the stain.

And that’s when the Mauds are young.

___

Is the Maud who is not Maud

hungry in the hospital

Is she hungry in the public, greater world

Does she subtly or otherwise

Adjust her pants

So the crease isn’t where it shouldn’t be

So the liquid and or insipid, weirdly-shaped life

doesn’t show?

—-

The cranky panties

The cranky britches

It’s all just visceral humanity

In cloth and or plastic form.

Weirdly temperamental, for

cloth and skin and

time

—

Maud not Maud?

She wasn’t always like this.

Ignore the swollen legs, the

cracked skin on the hands.

The crunchy, plastic

underwear

(We mean diapers)

that she doesn’t know

She actually wears.

She, so connected (once) to commerce

The mall

and clothes and money,

the grocery store, with its carts. Its deli…

—

She squats on the bench

Human, thick, real

With thoughts and eyes

and pasts

___

Her name wasn’t Maud.

I mean, isn’t

Maud.

Not Maud.

She is.

Regardless of the wrappings, she is.

She

Always

Was.

(Husky Bigboned Woman Plus-Sized Statuesque)

She always was.

Despite of but not because

of the humiliating wrappings

She

Is

There.

She is Here.

(Happy to see you, Maud)