The Beauty Years

In the years of my beauty

like you, I was too thin

waking with shaking arms

sugar starved blood.

A milk jug was too much

for my hand

aching with the effort

of doorknobs, keys, pens.

Early arthritis, I guessed

remembering my mother’s

bent knuckles. It wasn’t.

I was simply starved

but for the gaze of men

trained to like us thin

and weak as little girls.

What a gift are my fifties—

this body filling in, juicy

sweet as a newly wrinkled plum

becoming pink wine

softening my husband’s belly

sip by sip, drunk on me

drunk on him.