What the Body Decided

By four in the afternoon

I was past the polite kind of hungry—

the kind you manage with water

or by shifting in your chair.

The fluorescent light made everyone

look like they'd been there too long.

Someone across the table was explaining

a decision I had already made—

not the one being explained,

but the one underneath it,

which I had apparently reached

sometime in the last week

without announcing it to myself.

My stomach made a sound.

I looked at the water glass.

Forty minutes, untouched.

I kept not reaching for it—

maybe because wanting it

was the only clear thing in the room

and I wasn't ready

for that to show.

The fluorescent hum.

The explanation, still going.

I knew.

My body had known longer.

The water glass sat there, full.