My Diet Starts Tomorrow

I wrote this poem over 20 years ago. And now I don't know which is sadder...the fact that it's just as true today, or the fact that I'd now kill to look like I did then.



The time is now! My diet I'll start!

This time it will work -- I know in my heart.

My resolve is firm, my desire is true.

I'll be a new person by March twenty-two.



A person whose taken control of her life,

Jerry won't know I'm the very same wife.

All of my power and courage I'll muster.

I'll challenge this thing like General Custer.



But unlike Mr. Custer, I won't fail.

I'll soon be looking all skinny and frail.

My clothes will fit. I'll be looking so fine.

By (at the latest) April twenty-nine.



If, indeed, we are what we eat

I've become chocolate from head to my feet.

A "No thank you" will be my battle cry

When tempted with cookies and cake and pie.



This is a worthy crusade that I'm on

For soon a swimming suit I must don.

Oh, what a ravishing sight I will be

In all of my clothes by -- May twenty-three?



I'll be nibbling on salads and sprouts and fruit

Thinking, meanwhile, of that revealing suit.

I've become a slave to all of my cravings.

To cherries and whipped cream and chocolate shavings.



But that's in the past, I'm a new person now.

See determination in the set of my brow.

If the fourth of July comes and then goes

And I still can't fit in my summertime clothes...



I won't falter, I won't give in

I will not quit until I'm thin.

This is an honorable challenge to me;

To be svelte by August twenty-three.



If I'm not skinny by this coming fall...

I'm eating again -- the hell with it all!