Personal trainer

i buy a personal trainer
from an advertisement 
on the radio.
GET INTO SHAPE
the radio said. 
i thought to myself
what shape?
only 10 minutes after
i called, the trainer arrived
at my front door 
in blue basketball shorts &
a tank top. his muscles 
were smooth like a mirror cake.

he inspected my kitchen,
throwing all my cereal
in the trash can.
"No processed foods,
only citrus fruit for now."
he said, filling all the cabinets
with grapefruit & tangerines.

"i want my body to
look like this"
i said to 
the personal trainer.
i held up an abstract painting,
a Kandinsky: cacophony
of stray lines & colors--
a big black-red circles 
bold in the corner of the painting,
i pointed to it & said
"This will be my chest."

he surveyed the painting &
said he'd do what he could
but that i would have to 
eat only the grapefruits. 

we started the following morning
& he woke me up at 3:00AM
because he says that less
sleep brings out the abstraction
in us-- makes the body malleable. 

he handed me huge weights
that were somehow very light
& i asked "how come 
they're so light" 
& he said that meant 
they were working.

in the afternoon we ate
grapefruit on the back porch
& it tasted like pancakes 
with syrup.

"What does grapefruit
taste like to you?" i asked
& he said that it always tastes
like bacon. 

at night before we went to bed
i asked "where will you sleep
tonight?"
& he said that he wouldn't
be sleeping, that this was
all he cared about.

scared, i looked down at
my body & noticed the wild lines--
the absurd curves of my elbows
the reds & yellows. 
i couldn't get up.

he said i was so close 
to being done.
i screamed which confused him.
he said this is what i wanted
& he had come & done it.

"Go away! Get out!"
i shouted until he scurried away.
i felt bad but screaming
was the only way i knew to
get back into a normal body.

when i look in the mirror
i still see remnants of
the painting-- the great
big red black eye, a shadow
beneath my chest.