We remember what warm chocolate chip cookies

tasted like when we were 7. That was when

we didn’t know to measure flavor by calories.

My friend asked me yesterday is women are ever

happy with food or their bodies and I told her

I couldn’t think of someone.

We don’t even know if we like salad.

We feel waist bands like bridles or choke holds.

The magazines teach us to bake cookies

for other people– cup them in our

palms and taste them with manicures.

Hiss curses at our own taste buds–

pretend out tongues are daffodils.

We learn all the ways we can put ourselves

into boxes with measurements.

We think about warm melting

chocolate chips when we eat special K

bars pretending that women don’t like

the taste of food over 100 calories.

We are taught young that whether

kissing or consuming that our lips were

made only to sin against us.

What was Eve’s sin

but eating and falling in love

with the sugary fruit

she could never taste without

Adam’s guilt

and her own

protruding rib

that was his own.