Fat-Bottomed Girls

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BOWERY

A fat old broad on the Bowery
reclines on her fruit crate stool.
Her face, a round bulldog moon
hangs between shoulders pinned invisibly to her ears.
Bursting red shoes strain against fleshy cargo:
her feet, cased like sausages in greasy stockings
that sag into a knuckle of wrinkles at the ankle;
A thin chain shapes her name in gold beneath the chins and chins—
not “Helen,” which is true, but “June,” which fits:
yeasty, humid, and loud, ripe as the gesturing arm that lifts her fat homely bosom
before giving me the finger.
Tucked in her stocking
a wad of filthy dollar bills. These imply skill:
ample compensation for her garlic breath,
bulldog face, fat ass.

I am staring.
She shifts away, pulls her knees closed against me
And I look away.
And I think how, in moments, the delicacy of self-conscious shame
can lend grace to the turn of a fat ankle
to round sturdy calves
and conjure a brief illusion of desire.
Mercenary flesh may yet recall the wet
warm pressure of teeth
gentle against her clasped and private thighs;
her arms cramping with the last wistful shivers
of unobtrusive, plural miracles: love and loving,
still framed beneath her skin like sheathed and slender bones
breathing out new blood.
I see her moving in the dark
unburdened by the vision of herself below the waist
her sunburned shoulders limber in the dark
and the man who curves behind her in the dark
his arm around her but not holding her down
and how he cups her breast, takes her hand
and knows the value of each.
A sudden breeze licks along the boardwalk’s greasy planks
sends fingers up the skirt of the fat old broad
and she laughs, smoothes faded cloth back into place.
Artlessly, she conceals her giggling mouth—
toothless as a baby’s—
and bends, coy and graceful
to tug at her stockings.