Herculean effort
Lucía Pereira
A rainy day, a warm hearty meal
of a long passed down recipe.
Creased and vanilla scented,
paper like clay, like skin, like velvet
honour the hands that touch it
and yet here I am, empty.
Look how the sand holds my shape,
how all the earth ever does is embrace.
Look how my flesh shrinks,
how I will my body to quit,
how it, disobliging, survives despite me.
Dinner simmers,
ballads caress the air
and my mother forces my hand,
says I need to eat, says I am sick.
In a herculean effort I manage a sip
but the truth is: I can't stomach it.
of a long passed down recipe.
Creased and vanilla scented,
paper like clay, like skin, like velvet
honour the hands that touch it
and yet here I am, empty.
Look how the sand holds my shape,
how all the earth ever does is embrace.
Look how my flesh shrinks,
how I will my body to quit,
how it, disobliging, survives despite me.
Dinner simmers,
ballads caress the air
and my mother forces my hand,
says I need to eat, says I am sick.
In a herculean effort I manage a sip
but the truth is: I can't stomach it.
Lucía Pereira (Montevideo, Uruguay) studies English Literature and Culture in Spain, where she moved when she was five. There, she has been published in literary journals such as Página Salmón. She reads and writes because she craves to merge with another.
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