Hungry

I am so hungry.  My tongue sniffs
cool mountains, my stomach burns
with parables.  I live beneath a tree.
My teeth grow acquainted with leaves.

My father owns sharp mountains
lowering beneath clouds.
He lays his hands across my chest.
His footsteps surge into lakes.

My mother bathes in great rivers
of melted snow.  In the cold
her hunger grows.  Call this a body
of knowledge, call it belly and brains and heart.

Make salads of watercress, mustard
and weeds, stir in apples and roots,
whole baskets of fruit.  Oil on the tables,
oil in the lamps.  Candles and wood. 

Chimes and boats in moonlight.
Today I have swallowed forests in my feast.
Snakes feed in the honey rain,
my tongue leaps: a leopard, a ferret, a shark.

Steve Klepetar

If you have any comments on this poem, Steve Klepetar  would be pleased to hear from you.