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An ars poetica from Bonita Cox Searle

I Am Fat

with poems unwritten.

They came uninvited
and bred like rabbits.
They clogged my heart
and smothered my throat.

They impacted my gut—
it no longer worked.
They crammed my hippo thighs
until I became an elephant.

Elephants don’t write.

My pachyderma expanded
and expanded
and expanded
until it cracked
and words seeped out—

One thin poem at a time.


Bio: Bonita Cox Searle lives in Noblesville, Indiana, where she writes poetry, short stories, memoir, and mystery novels. Her first published story, "Murder on Potter's Bridge," won The First Annual Armchair Detective Story Contest sponsored by the Polk Street Review. It will appear in the 2014 fall issue.