Gillie Bolton

for Alice

so you wear your hair shirt
under the skin,

discipline that muscle bulge
with endless exercise,
vomit what we persuade you to eat,
scour away the ooze and flab
of femaleness.

You sculpt your body
with the purity of no food,
float above our weight
stuck to the earth.

The heaviness of your heart,
your thighs
drags at you so much
you carve it away
hack at the sin
of being alive
of being you,

and keep guard
against the devil who mocks
if you sleep or dream.

It feels safer up there
high on fasting.
Out of reach.

¹ Dannie Abse p78 selected poems Penguin 1977

Gillie Bolton
Of course Haloes are out of Fashion The Lancet 2000 355 p1193.