I hammer a steel cage
around my hunger,
where it awaits, quivering, the handouts –
dry rolls, apple slices, cups of water.
I train my appetite toward the dirt,
a harvest of parsnips, beets, potatoes,
each dense as precious metal.

All winter, I change
crème brulee into cotton, chocolate into mud –
an alchemy of resolve.
Lemon and strong Darjeeling
cleanse me.

Flesh sloughs off.
My stomach shrinks
like an old balloon;
my pelvic bones jut out
like a trophy:

I have triumphed
over everything oily, sweet rich,
the cream at my center
vanquished – dried up
like a lake in a drought.

- Published in the Larcom Poetry Review, 2001

Clara Silverstein has published poems in literary journals including the Comstock Review, the Hiram Poetry Review, and Blackbird on-line literary journal. Her memoir, "White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation" will be published by University of Georgia Press in September, 2004. She also writes for the Boston Herald and is the Program Director of the Writers' Center at Chautauqua (N.Y.)