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Susan Hamlyn

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Eating Disorder

Carla eats her lunch
as the therapist, the healer,
the doctor, the psychiatric nurse,
the case worker, the chaplain,
and the Buddhist neighbour
who took her in when her parents’
weeping drove her out
said she should.

Home again, no one watches
the plate as the small salads
sidle off.  It is hard to swallow
not knowing if Carla swallows.
No meals are normal here.
No one wants to eat
but Carla’s mouthfuls could be
little bites back into a life.
Carla scrapes her chair
and races off another way,
biking down the road,
flexing off the salad leaves
for two fierce hours.
Then she’s back, wet and fleshless
as the sloppy stalk
that is wiped from the fridge.

At dinner Carla eats
with resonant cutlery
her fatless slices, her grated roots,
her brother, her grandmother,
her parents, her childhood,
her children, her future.

Page(s) 24

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