Obesity (Kathleen Peirce)

Reception is a gesture of the will
opening, one peach rose widening the light, or
rain finally taking the abandoned room,
the walls newly alive with water, and the ceiling
raining. It must have been happening a long time;
the random, jewel-colored bottles on the floor
swallowing the intermittent drops to a point approaching fullness,
then over full, and every surface here is changed, bigger,
touched too much by something wonderful
and ruinous. She would hardly tell you how bakery cakes call to her,
but look; the tiniest prettiest woman, a decoration
for a cake, was saved inside the cupboard by the sink. One arm
is raised. The smallest spider imaginable has linked her as an object
full of things, a strand at each hinge: shoulder,
elbow, wrist, and mouth, obedient to hunger, and the room falling in.