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The Hunger

Janine Canan

To hate, to love
requires a stone basement
where wines are stored
in spider-dark dampness--
a single light switch just by a door
that's strongly framed against earthquakes.
Then brick on brick and beam on beam,
all we think and all we feel press close
to hold the moment open
to light at night, and in the morning
more darkness.

*

Degrading myself, a cell
in communion with others,
I'm reduced to the pain that measures
the height I'll fill, fulfilling my purpose--
one foot sunk in unreason,
the other lifted forever onto the rock.
In this posture I greet you--a sculpture
carved by a former lover, mouth opened
on one unending syllable--intoxicated
with the words that rush through my vessels,
all carrying the one message: my life.

*

When you think
the last poem over,
does it scare you like a bare breast?
My hunger so blatant, my dream
a gourmet meal so easily distilled
to throbbing suck: chocolate-chip cookies and milk,
eggs Benedict served with champagne,
coquilles St. Jacques--all richness
reduced to butter then milk
then mother. You must be shocked
I want to eat you.



Scars Publications


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