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Baby Fat
Kelly Cammack

1958, too young to remember
recounted as family lore
Mrs. Janssen, newly immigrated from Holland
pregnant belly straining against
chocolate smudged apron
reaching over backyard fence
to lift this Canadian child
Mom yelling from our wooden porch
”Don’t pick her up,
she’s too heavy”

1965, Grade Four Health Weigh-In.
Me, frantic, looking for privacy,
Privacy, what’s that,
A term for the 90’s not the 60’s
Everyone knows your story in grade four
I climb the scale, like stairs up a mountainside
knowing I’ll come down the other side,
A different girl

Nurse proclaims loudly
”One hundred and ten pounds”,
Billy Sullivan snickers behind me
”That’s what a baby elephant weighs.”
I hug my baby fat
That’s what my Nana call it
”Her baby fat”

I hear them talking over
ash trays of lipstick blemished cigarette butts
coffee-stained tablecloth,
powdered creamer, matching sugar bowl
No one looking, I lick my finger,
dip it in the sweet crystals
Later, it will go back
into the cupboard that I know
with familiarity, like a best friend

Don’t worry, it’s just her baby fat,
she’ll lose it when she becomes a teenager,
”Brian was the same way”
I look over at my dad,
all two hundred and eight-five pounds of him.

1970, Grade Eight, first day of Junior High
Taylor Carson in his beaded suede jacket
Me fumbling at my locker,
struggling to breathe, quietly
I overhear him
”She’d be cute if she lost 50 lbs”
I don’t even look around to check
I know it’s me

I do lose it
But not until every humiliation
has been served to me
on a platter of insecurity and self-loathing
I lose it, and then I find it
I bounce my weight like a beach ball
Up, down, up, down, up

1984, I proudly produce a baby boy
With every year of loving him,
I gain, until I think, I can gain no more
I’ve lost so much of myself

That summer we are at the lake,
I emerge from my wet comfort blanket
Pudgy fingers of a stranger’s child pointing at me
My head voice screams
don’t look at me,
Look at my beautiful boy, I earned this
This is my baby fat.

—
Kelly Cammack is privileged to live and create on the beautiful traditional territory of the Wei Wai Kum First Nations on the east coast of Vancouver Island.

Kelly mostly writes poetry but also memoir and fiction. She writes her truths to give hope to young girls and women, that they will abandon their quest for perfection, abandon their quest to meet others’ expectations of beauty, and that they will instead discover the beauty that is inherent in who they are.

Widowed at forty-nine, Kelly is inspired to write about love, grief, family secrets, found truths, and much more.

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Have you read these poems:
Before Light Shifts by Marc Swan
How Did You Sleep? by Kim Stafford

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.