Tomorrow I Begin

Tomorrow I eat nothing but bean soup, or else nothing

but Raisin Bran. Yes, tomorrow I shall begin

my great Raisin Bran diet. No more chips for this guy,

no more French fries with mayonnaise,

or frozen wedding cake.

Tomorrow, I eat only things

I can pick up with my thumbs,

only what I can carry in my breast pocket,

only what the astronauts eat.

I shall eat only meat

cooked in a light vinaigrette sauce, only muffins

with one less yolk.

Tomorrow, I will eat only things I can slurp

off the lenses of my glasses with a straw.

Friends will comment on how good I look,

how much I’ve changed since even earlier that day,

how there’s a certain hollowness in my cheeks

they had never noticed before. I will use my lighter body

to do good in the world, I will learn to fly, fly low,

avoiding radar. I will fight white-collar crime and speak

at junior high schools in poor neighborhoods.

I’ll become fluent in Mandarin while commuting to work.

I will dedicate myself to God

and man, offer up my new lightness to His Greatness. I will

have tons of sex, sex with beautiful women, of course,

but also with antelope and panthers.

My lightness will allow me to travel back in time

in the evenings after dinner. If there’s nothing great

on TV, I will do it, travel back, and visit my larger self,

and I will hold him in my arms, but not too long

because he is so darn heavy,

and after I have shushed and rocked my old self to sleep,

I will return to my skinny living room. There

I will begin the diet of my middle period, and grow smaller still.

I will become what I am eating, a shape-shifter, a demigod

a very, very thin, and therefore more confident man.

“Tomorrow I Begin” is from Begin Anywhere (Alice James Books, 2008).