A Portrait of Myself as Audrey Hepburn
by Hallie Chametzky

I’ve thought about telling them, you know,

that none of it’s a blessing or a diet or a trophy

that my waist wasn’t always so svelte that there were days when my

hands never stopped shaking

and that’s why they dance like spider legs now.

I felt my neck close in once from lack of use

last week someone compared it to a swan.

I’ve thought about saying

that when men from a neighboring country

put their children on trains to somewhere

where food becomes more coveted than a neck that bends at just the right angle

than a funny face, a lovely face

then they can idolize my bones which protrude through too few red blood cells

they can ruffle their feathers gracefully, delicately

delicately like breaking

delicately like crawling

delicately like my father on his deathbed having never lamented

the badges he wore and the thinness of dark eyed babes

with hollow spaces for stomachs

with craters for skin and no feathers in the winter.

My Hollywood arms bear luggage

which I may not unload into the pudgy, soft, unwrinkled hands of American celebrity.