What it’s like to be a thin white girl?
It is being nine years old and
Hearing your oldest teenage sister say:
“Just wait till you get fat!” You never do.
You have a thyroid condition.
One of the smallest in your class.
Age thirteen you sprout six inches inone year.
From being too short to reach the upper handle in the public bus
On the way to school, you can now grab it and you’re
Taller than your two sisters.
You out-eat your father,
then your husband.
With a seemingly infinite capacity
For pizza, desserts, chocolate,
You never gain weight, which maddens
Your oldest still plump sister and your
Equally plump husband.
When you finish off his bit of ice cream
in the freezer, he cries. “I was saving it.”
“Don’t cry. I can get more.”
He’d gained twenty, maybe thirty pounds
during marriage.
From being a medium sized fellow,
he grew sizeable.
You take a step back,
startled. Then you run out to
buy him more ice cream.
Eventually, you divorce.
While recovering,
You hear a raucous, wonderfully funny fat
Black comedienne on TV making fun of
“those thin, white bitches.”
Does she hate you too?
What’s it like being a thin white girl?
Though you’re no Snow White,
It feels as if you’ve eaten
the poisoned apple of the witch.
Caught
A Breughel Winter Snow Scene
Bruises
For My Sister
To My Westie: Neva
The Twilight Years
Kim Bendheim 