If

If I learn to love this body, the orange-skin pucker
Of my thighs, and my breasts, like fruit grown too heavy
On the branch

If the cup of my husband’s hand runs over, the swell of
My breasts an ample cascade between the fissure
Of his fingers

If my son, white knuckled, presses dimples in the soft
Folds of my stomach as he drifts — milk-drunk, still suckling —
Into slumber

If my daughter touches, absently, the curve of my hip
That bore her weight — that bore her safe passage
Into the world

If my daughter takes refuge in starvation, culling
Meat from bone, says, “I can never learn to
Love this body,”

Then I will take my daughter, flesh wrought from my own
Complex, imperfect flesh, in my arms and whisper,
“You will, you will, you will.”