“Fat Woman Utopia!” by Alessandra Nysether-Santos (5/17-5/23)

sweet strawberry-pickin’ 
hair-braidin’
freckles-on-the-tops-of-your-shoulders-kissin’
women 
in fits of tinkling slap-your-thighs laughter
between dandelion afternoons
and citronella dusks
paradise is some sunshine and rainbows
some musical thunderstorms
with gorgeous displays of heat and sweet, yet
no scorching gaze to burn these garden bodies
into rigid rows of hedges, stunted 
branches sharpened into defense mechanisms—
we are flesh and spirit
without spite
tracing each other’s silvered stretch marks, inquiring
the names of such sparkling rivers, admiring
delicate purple veins and dark spots
even the sun can’t help but shine on
this vast wildness flourishing
flourishing! everyone is just 
as woman or fat as suits them
and here we are as a daisy chain—
behind me her tender fingers working through my thick hair,
my cool hands squeezing another’s untangling shoulders
as their sweet lap holds the shaved head
of still another woman whispering
you are loved
you are loved, you are
loved.