Holly Day

My Husband Comments on How I’ve Let Myself Go

he tells me I remind him
of a beached whale lying in
bed in the morning I close my
eyes and imagine myself
being picked apart by the claws of
tiny sand crabs burrowed into
by thin red beach worms
gobbets of flesh ripped

from my carcass by flocks of sea gulls
luring even the raccoons down
from the stubby forest
following the shore. he asks me
if I feel ashamed of myself
and I don’t answer because
I feel dead already I’m
too busy

imagining the shock of
girl scout troops stumbling across
my massive corpse in the shallows
the feel of their tiny hands
on my body joined by the larger hands
of Greenpeace workers and passing
tree huggers as they try
to push me back
into the water

hoping somehow that this half-eaten
cold and lifeless body might
magically come back to
life and swim away if only
they could get me back
into the water.