JOAN MAZZA

When They Called Me Skinny

In a brown paper bag, lunch from home— a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper, before Saran Wrap or Tupperware. Not like the other kids’ lunches, who brought colorful metal boxes with PB & J or baloney and cheese, which I might have eaten.

Mine was an omelet with the leftover vegetable from dinner: spinach, cauliflower, or broccoli with grated Romano cheese and pungent garlic and herbs.

At the lunch tables in the school basement, next to the only bathrooms, kids complained about the stink of my homemade food, simulated gagging sounds, puked eruptions of disgust, reminding me I had no appetite at all. I rewrapped my mother’s labor and chucked that bag into the trash.