Edna
For breakfast she starts out modestly:
a cup of tea, no milk, but sugar plenty.
By nine o’clock her stomach’s growling,
and Edna’s in the kitchen prowling.
There must be something she can chew,
a bagel or a donut, and more than a few.
It isn’t much she mumbles to herself
but it’s food at least and a little helps.
Nevertheless, it should hold her nicely
until lunch – twelve noon, precisely –
when she forces down a large spinach
salad with a dry toast and a grimace,
followed with a plain nonfat yogurt which
she detests as much as she does spinach
but reluctantly swallows. Then it’s a jog
no matter the weather, sun, rain or fog.
Extra large jogging pants she likes to wear
(she feels she’s losing weight somewhere!).
Neighbors watch her running from behind
kitchen curtains thinking things not very kind.
On her final lap she gives a final push;
she’s needs to minimize that monster tush.
Back home she showers then has a snack:
a small block of cheese, then hits the sack.
By three o’clock her stomach’s acting up,
three hours remain before she can sup.
She’ll never last, she thinks despairingly,
and in a flash she’s speeding to the deli
where she woofs down a large pastrami
with a kosher dill that could choke a pigmy.
And O! the cheesecakes are the dreamiest,
thickest, richest, heaviest, and creamiest! –
Back home stuffed and drowsy, it’s back to bed
waking up not at six but ten p.m. instead!
Decides it’s much too late for dinner, so sips
a cold beer and downs a bag of salted chips.
Midnight. Time for bed again but not before
she hits the scale and stands before a mirror.
Edna has good reason to wear a frown –
her shape’s the pyramid of Giza upside-down.
Copyright ©
Maurice Rigoler
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