Wednesday, April 12, 2006

insatiable



Not even the magnolia trees in
full bloom can fill me. Three days this
hunger ripens, rides the edges
of my mouth, pulses through my blood,

asking to be satisfied. I eat through
the pantry, the stomach a compliant
bystander. Bite, taste, swallow:
the burning is not extinguished.

The magnolia blossoms—saucer,
tulip, anise—shine like cold spring stars.
The April sky, lit with fat cherry buds,
burgeons and empties itself.

But I, unquenched, distracted, come home
to quiet rooms hungry, hungry. This is my fire.
O appetite, would three of years of rain
be sufficient to douse such flames?

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