After hearing Cal speak
Of his trips to Friendship Villages
Madeline Weil started missing classes
She’d rather read in the library
Than go to Business Law classes
She’d study the photos of the children
She checked out autobiographies and memoirs
From decades ago by people her granddad’s age
And something began to change
Without her even noticing it
Her eating habits became less compulsive
Less time-and-energy-consuming
The more she contemplated the emaciated bodies
Of the Vietnamese then and now
The less attention she paid to her own body
Something new
Something different
Was eating away at her
–from novel-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris
