Anorexia walks on little bird-like legs
and carries in her blood the dark desire
for destruction: to disappear,
to shine in renunciation, the shooting star.
And thus, by shrinking, to value oneself, love oneself.
To shine, to vanish like angels,
like light, like the flight of a fairy, like pollen
before the astonished eyes of the Cow –
the vigorous emblem of abundance –
who marvels and will never understand it.
“But tell me, dearest, your names.”
“My names are:
wrist, knee,
breast-bone, collar-bone,
patella, femur,
vertebra, tibia,
humerus, heel-bone
coccyx and elbow,
jawbone, cheekbone,
hip-bone, ileus and radius.”
“And so, two-dimensional greyhound,
and so your bone shines, shines through, emerging
and so, tip of an iceberg, frozen gut
and so, yellowish, bumpy whiteness.
The skin softens until it turns to silk.
Some thread snaps in the grimace
of your twisted smile, skull.
Queen of knuckles and joints.
Accordion of ill-dressed flesh. Spittle.
The slow caterpillar of sickness
hooped over the lettuce
twists and turns its green and skinny segments.
Lilac-coloured flute of the wasted skeleton,
lied for violin, bow-stroke
over the strings, cadence, tear;
extra-long bassoon filtering the joy
and the victory of a twenty-gram loss:
you weep happiness on the scales:
the no-weight. Disappearance.
Because this is how you show yourself:
insectivorous, agonic
pre-gram-manic, aphonic
tarantulic, arachnid
barbituric, tantric
parchmenteric, tetric
seraphysic, metric
dramatic, plutonic
antarctic, octopedic
manic
programmatic
postromantic
chiromantic
craniologic
cataleptic
yoghurteric
epileptic
abracadaveric
melancholic
spasmodic
halitosic
fractalphilic
polyclinic
paroxystic,
so you show yourself to me,
white spider of scant movement
weaving your soft web
where you yourself will be both pearl and death.”