July 6, 2010

bread

It’s the first thing you can think of, feeling the depletion in the belly 
after the limbo of sleep. However restive or tranquil, you wake into morning
and galumph into the kitchen wholly, unreservedly hungry,
find the good knife and slice into the plump loaf idling 
on the counter. It is not a meal, exactly, and yet you cram
slices into your mouth as if this was all you required to fill the trough,
as if bread alone were an adequate repast. But an hour later, you’re empty again, 
your body clamoring for true nourishment, and it's clear it's not enough,
something in you not quite fed, growling like some unmet carnivore.
Longing is a deep and ravenous animal. Give it what it's asking for.