"Candy Bar" (7-Minute NaPoWriMo Poem for April 29)

Candy Bar




Every night he ate a candy bar,
a peanut butter hope, the muscular
spread in the middle, the acid sweet
nougat. He ate for the aid
of something larger than himself,
that filling to fill, that fullness
in the heart that never comes. All the repetition,
the attention to latinate names for
the flexing, all those stubborn gluts
and max, all the careful measuring of aminos,
the building blocks of a new tomorrow
in a new physique -- anything to lay
it on. Every night, that wrinkling of the wrapper,
a calling to God to come on over and get him.
He was getting larger and no longer
the stiff face in a morning mirror. Every night
that gnawing into shame, that fighting
with the self for the room to move,
for the single soul, full-grown, with a view.




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written in 7 minutes for National Poetry Writing Month for April 29

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