I’ve been riding my bike

all the way to Pier 39,

over to the arcade.

I played some basketball

down by the Marina.

I bought a bunch of new comics.

Do you read comics? I ask.

No, she says, but I want to.

I don’t tell her how much

I stare into the mirror,

guarding my body against

gaining any more weight back

or how I’m starting to wonder

if I have to stay on this diet forever.

When I stop talking,

her voice is a waterfall.

She tells me about how she thinks

in high school she might become an artist,

and how she is trading Quiet Riot for Prince.

because he’s so rad.

Before we hang up,

she makes me promise

to call her back in a few days.

I promise, and then I ask her,

Have you talked to Lisa?

You totally like her, she says.

Gretchen laughs into the phone

and her laugh makes me laugh too.

Lisa’s totally awesome,

but so am I.

Just wait till we meet.

August

Level 3

At the start of August,

I have lost almost

30 pounds.

All the biking and swimming

is changing me too.

The insides of my thighs

are a straight line

all the way to my knees,

but most of all,

when I see myself

in the mirror

or a store window,

I notice

my jaw,

smooth,

just one chin, my chin,

at the end,

where it’s supposed to be.

My mother asks me

if I’m ready for Level 3.

I’m supposed to eat more carbs now.

I’m supposed to stress my body with food.

Test it.

Stress it?

I don’t want to. I’m tired.

Berries

cherries

melons

orange

pear

a small banana

The book says I may soon experience uncontrollable cravings.

But I have come so far. How could it get any worse?

Mysterious World

There will always be things unknown and perhaps unknowable.

Arthur C. Clarke

I open up Arthur C. Clarke’s

Mysterious World

and stare at the empty eyes of the crystal skull,

let myself walk through those deep corridors.

I want to be like Arthur C. Clarke,

a naturalist. I want to carry

a notebook and a camera,

travel the world unlocking

mysteries of Earth:

frogs and fish falling from the sky,

the Green Children from Woolpit,

who spoke a language

never heard before.

Like the travelers who

first discovered animals, fairy-tale monsters,

nunda, the king cheetah, the okapi,

the mountain gorilla.

I imagine my own expeditions traveling

to the deep Amazon, Kilimanjaro, Loch Ness,

or through the Himalayas.

In the introduction,

Clarke writes,

The universe is such a strange and wonderful place that reality will always outrun the wildest imagination.

The letters are worn from my finger

passing through the words.

He reminds me that no matter what,

the one thing

that’s not a lie,

is that mystery is real.

31

When I go back to the beach, I think,