Right Before I Stopped Working On My Biceps

by Nick Orf

i am a skinny little bitch.  i go to the gym

and watch men for whom big enough shirts
do not exist heave things that are too heavy.

if i were able to dead lift my body weight
the achievement would still be laughable.

one behemoth man slaps another
behemoth man on the ass after a power clean,

and that sound of hand against spandex
makes something snap in my mind—

strength is relative.

a silverback gorilla could bench
more than those two put together.

he would put them to shame.

even the flexing man on those posters
could not out-squat a tyrannosaurus rex.

i wipe sweat off my face and i go home.

i open a mason jar for my grandmother
and she speaks of me to my grandfather

the way they spoke of goliath
before we smaller folks invented the sling shot.