Hunger Poem by Jeanne Murray Walker

You can feel his heartbeat slow
as he loiters just off the Expressway,
by the Okoboji Swamp
looking casual as an old purse
under the Spanish moss,

his eyes envisioning some delicacy
—a family of small newts
with a salad of green scum,
or several whiskered catfish.
Under his gorgeous skin his brain is moving,

as mine and yours are moving now
with joy at hunger,
joy at hunger filled.
Suddenly he opens his mouth
of magnificent stalactites and stalagmites,

astonished at the power
of his new hunger. He rises and
like a bee bumbling into a flower,
staggers sideways toward the Expressway.
As guards gather,

drawing guns, he is lost in bliss
imagining
the turquoise swimming pool
down the road,
stocked with children.