Hungry

 

All the conversations stopped when she said,

I’ve seen you hungry, and everyone knew

what she meant, and one of us thought of red

meat hissing over hot coals under blue

skies, and one thought of what it is to want

and how life is just want want want, and one

thought of hunger’s nakedness, how it haunts

our dreams with raw shame, and one thought of guns

and what some people will do to survive,

and one thought of nothing because he’d never

been hungry, and one thought of the blessings

and miracles that keep us alive,

and one thought only in numbers, of seven

fires in seven bellies, more or less.

 

 

© Michael Fleming

Brattleboro, Vermont

July 2021

 

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