Jen Rouse

Convenience

My daughter calls my gym a cult,
my desire at this age to be alive in
muscle and sweat a mystery
to youth. Perimenopause is the new
little black dress I wear to the Casey’s
down the block, as I stand
stench-stained staring at the slow
spinning rack of sausage pizza.

There is never a slice of cheese.

That fennel-flecked gristle pumping
its scent into my pores,
I imagine flicking off each piece
before sliding the molten mozzarella
down my throat. Too old now really
for this moral fortitude, grinding it
out like a cigarette butt underneath
a Keds’ heel.

Yes, I come here,
where the cashier calls me “Sis,”
every night, and I am workhorse
to no one. Just a steaming shadow
reflected in a freezer case,
reaching for more.

Jen Rouse’s most recent book is Fragments of V from Small Harbor Publishing. She is the author of four books of poetry from Headmistress Press: A Trickle of Bloom Becomes You, Riding with Anne Sexton, CAKE, and Acid & Tender. Rouse directs the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cornell College. She lives in Iowa City with her partner and their two rambunctious wheaten terriers.