Ode To My Belly

Every once in a while, I look through a folder of stuff I wrote or worked on years ago. Well, I was going through an old portfolio of work I did way back in the late '80s, when hair was still big and movie popcorn was still made with heart-stopping oil and real butter. One of the things I found was a folder of short stories and poems I had written for a creative writing course I had taken for fun. And so, in the interest of sharing the pain, I've decided to release one of the more tolerable poems to you, my dear readers. Of course, while others in the class were writing poems about nature and love and pain, I was writing about Marilyn Monroe, buses, bills and this; my belly. I decided not to share the short story about the voyeuristic psycho. Some things are better left in a folder, buried under junk. (I was in a weird place at that time.) Enjoy.

ODE TO MY BELLY

Is there any part of me more obvious than you?
Hiding my buckle under your bulk,
And straining to free yourself from the confines of buttons.
Your firm roundness, ever salient,
Becoming more and more difficult to hide under the bagginess of a sweater.

An insufferable breadbasket,
Basking at the beach.
Flaunting your prominence,
And quickly contracting for the bikini-clad beauty.

Just a rotund tummy are you,
Prodding me to the larger sizes,
The way you forced me into the husky section,
When we were both young, but just as prolific.

What a cantankerous protuberance,
Making your presence known at the most inopportune times.
A romantic tryst, a job interview, or a quiet moment
Is not the proper place to sing your song,
My dear gurgling gullet.

You are my meal clock,
Alerting me to feeding time.
And I, your slave, generously oblige.
With wine and ravioli,
With pizza and beer,
or a thick slab of Italian cream cake.
And only rarely do you complain afterwards,
Gripping my innards with your sinewy fingers
As the rest of you flops and flounders.

I look at you, my grand belly,
Thinking of the wondrous buffets we've shared,
Of the hearty laughs that left you all a-jiggle,
And the smoothness of your skin laid upon hers as we love.

You, the buttoned maw of my jolly rotundity,
That, by a life sustaining cord did you unite me to a mother,
You that delegates the vital nutrients to the proper parts of me.
Would it be fair to diet you with Tofu and cottage cheese?
I should say not.

Do you care for fries with that Whopper?

by Steve DiMeo

P.S. The picture is not representative of my current belly, nor should it be considered as anything but a photo illustration of the title of this blog. Thank you for your consideration. -The Management.