Rebecca Levi
Appendix
The world thins around me.
I never thought I’d miss the viscous.
Why does no one float here?
Even the fat pad who used to love me
slumps against the glass,
no good for conversation anymore.
The others never talked to me, unproductive slick of tissue,
useless and gorgeous—
isn’t that the definition of art?
I let them worry about systems and viruses
(classic middle management)
and studied the greats.
Not Van Gogh or even Picasso;
I wanted south, post-colonial,
Kahlo and the Argentines
and of course Botero’s bronze work—
naked giants with tiny genitals.
The large intestine rolled its eyes,
nothing new.
That’s how I got into my Colombian period,
started puffing myself out.
I was trying voluminosity.
Pushing the envelope. Annoying the colon.
Only the fat pad appreciated
what I was doing,
so we hatched a plan to go live in Marfa
and make surrealist digital portraits
of very small things.
All I had to do was keep growing.
The fat pad elbowed out more space for me,
the intestines went crazy,
the colon flipped,
even the spleen heard about it.
We knew we’d be leaving soon.
Huddled together in the dark,
the fat pad stroked my inflamed back
and reminded me of our whys.
Now we’re in this glass house,
which isn’t how I pictured Marfa,
though let’s be honest it could be Marfa,
but just in case I keep an eye out for passing trucks
so we can hitch a ride to the desert.