Good Eater

By Daniela Loggia

Pass them to me: the fries you won’t eat,
the crumbs of dry pie crust, your disappointment
in yesterday’s step count,
your dissolving dreams of as least one daughter
who will stroke your hair and sing you lullabies as you age,
your pickles, your rage
at waiting in line at the doctor’s office,
your memories of fat women,
the last few years you have left to live,
the shrimp shells you find too crunchy.
I’ll unzip myself chin to belly and show you
the colony of seagulls living inside me,
They scream constantly.
Let me collect the scraps from your dinner plates
and toss them to my hundred, reaching mouths.
Let me eat everything,
anything you don’t want, all of you.
Because I still have room, and I have always been
such a good eater.

---

A Plea to Spring

By Daniela Loggia

Please explain fathers who appear seasonally
at the window like thirsty hummingbirds
or raccoons, tiny, desperate hands outstretched.
If you are quiet and non-threatening,
they might come back after you feed them.
You could be Cinderella, the whole forest at your feet.  Instead,
instead of a glass gown,
you will be riddled with punctures and scratches,
the honey inside you will spill,
spread in rivulets across the floor and all the critters will drink from you.
You will be empty, mouth left dry with residual tannins,
all winter you will desiccate
until years later, when those same fathers return
to tap gently at the glass,
cup your cheek with their leathery hands,
place their long tongues into your ear to whisper,
tell you what a joy it is to have children.

---

Daniela Loggia writes from Vancouver and the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.  She is the author of several provincial court documents. Her poem, "Ode to Chris de Burgh", was published in Wordscapes Youth Arts Journal and selected as grand prize winner for the journal’s Ripple Effect Contest. Her chapbook, Apostasia, is forthcoming from Maverick Duck Press, and she is currently working on a novella exploring the nexus of goblins and Alzheimer’s.