I would want you as something I could write

down, track like a recipe, each substitution noted.

Open this notebook saved from a student’s trash,

how it’s filled with years of burn, calories in, out.

This is fitness. This is the test of the mind and you,

sleek muscle, clogged lymph, are a seal of a girl.

In it you’ll find each injury little, imagined, big

spinal surgery, all those things you couldn’t change.

Or name.  You know how you love to name things.

Each label a love letter written in pencil because

that’s easier to erase.

AD Stuart’s poetry was nominated for Best New Poets 2016 and my nonfiction won New South journal’s 2012 prose prize. Past publications include AGNI, Cherry Tree, Raleigh Review, Third Coast, Sugar House Review, The Texas Review, Louisiana Literature, Fiction Southeast, New World Writing, The Louisville Review, Poet Lore, Lake Effect, and North Dakota Quarterly. She is an associate professor of English/Creative Writing at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.