Stay home if u sicc/Come over if u thicc

What if you are sick and thick, the virus
sweating from the pores in your beautiful ass,
round as a crystal ball,
the future bright within?

What if you are neither sick nor thick
but waifish, breakable, balanced on an impossible
dancer’s toe for weeks, afraid to move?

What if you are sick, but it is a heartbreak
kind of sick, the kind that makes you cry
as you watch a live video
of a celebrity couple
cooking with their children?

What if you are thick, but thick with longing,
thick with the need for touch,
for hands on your body, the longing
so swollen in your throat, you cough
to force it out?

Stay home, the posts insist. The photos,
the thick male arms reaching
for sailboat railings and beers
and the waists of smiling women.
The lull of the swipe– don’t like, don’t like,
like. Come over.

*

Hadley Franklin‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Joyland, The Boiler, Palimpsest, Narrative, and others. She holds an MFA in fiction from NYU’s Creative Writing Program. She is a dean at a special education school in New York and lives in Brooklyn with her son.