By Beatrice Mao
age: 17

I don't want
to try that pie-it looks
much too delicious, she says,
her eyes pushing away
the plate, her look like the classic
break-up note, a silent
glower, suspicious, regarding
from afar. One glance
at her body, her self-revealing
words-no, just that
salad there, yes, the one
with nothing to it but
water and fiber-the constant
calorie calculations like
frenzied brokers on Wall Street, their ties
tightly pulled around their necks,
soaked with sweat,
begging for a last push
toward suicide, the truth
sitting in the pit
of my stomach, waiting
for her to complain how easy it
would be to slip a few more grams
of fat in foods at restaurants, for
her eyes to become tiny slits as microscopic
as her waist, my own
interest in nutrition like a child's vegetables
under the table to the dog, my plate half-full,
the ingredients in and mystery of
grits no longer important.