~LYNNELL EDWARDS~

HUNT

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My food my parent my child I want you my own
My flower my fin my life my lightness my O
                    —Robert Pinsky, “The Want Bone”
           

Four a.m. crash hardest
after Sunday of good cheer,
red wine and laughter
in late February light,
a good day spent stamping
the frozen earth after
a pack of cold-nosed dogs,
the tree line a black map
against the bright sky.
So then to tumble

into bed with a cradling mate,
warm nest of body and quilt,
and wake, squint a few tears
at a good life gone
sour in the stolid dark,
to name all daylight
accomplishment a false trail, scent of hunger
muddied in the current,

is to suffer wanton indulgence.
When someone still will
tend to coffee, smile
at my dishevelment, worry
over my comfort in the cold;
when food and money
are plenty, and the good news
of health, a child’s success
are general in my life;

this then is to gut
the live heart
of what I love most,
to feed fat want
its juicy bone when it calls
at dawn growling,
finds me clattering at the ready
with my horn and whip,
my thin dressing gown.

   

© by Lynnell Edwards