Under Hunger's Zodiac

O ravenous light by which I map my way

Here—and in time for Thanksgiving—is a poem about that wild dance of hunger which has us in its grip and flings us and flummoxes us. Unpublished at present but here for you loud and clear.

Under Hunger’s Zodiac

In the Shop ‘n Save Mart my wife and I find flowers jacketed 
in plastic, red peppers the color 
of fire engines, shelves higher than my head
loaded with squishy bread
in rainbow-colored bags. Choose the food 
that will hurt you
the least, I tell myself, and standing 
in that bright room crammed with corporate meat 

and vegetables I try to dream that bread back 
to its true source, say a field of wheat 
and a man driving a combine
through it, the snatched-up grain blurring into the hopper 
trailing behind—
or some factory where the loaves on the belt must be a blur
also, as though speed alone 
were the goal and only on the plate is our food 

stilled, held for a moment 
in that brief ceremony of table 
and chair. There’s that welcoming frame of mind
you can find yourself in
in a restaurant, that luxurious headspace 
you can settle into 
simply by entering that theater 
where hunger and ignorance make miracle of a burger covered 

in extra cheese, of French fries 
cut from potatoes fattened in a field where you
have never walked. As though luxury 
were simply ignorance 
of where the water starts, of how the pig was killed. 
At the end of my first shift 
at the bakery the floor manager told me 
to take whatever I wanted from the long wooden table 

strewn with hardening baguettes
and dinner rolls, with knobbled loaves of sourdough 
and flaking croissants still shiny 
with their two-day-old glaze of egg-whites 
and butter—and giddy with delight 
but guilty also 
I turned to the bearded man camped out 
in a worn chair 

by the timeclock and said “You want any of this?” 
But “No thanks,” is all he growled 
back, and then “I’m the guy 
who makes this crap.” No magic for him 
anymore, no miracle 
but the downward spiral, what bread becomes
in the gut. And months later 
with my own delight in free food still intact 

I’d wonder if somehow 
in the unseen spiritual workings of the world 
it was my own greed that kept me 
there, earning my slim wages at the cash register 
and sandwich board—
as though if I could cleanse myself 
of hungers I’d graduate to some higher labor 
involving silk scarves 

and rose petals, the whirring of olive branches
in summer air. But then 
as now the wild rush of craving can strike 
in a moment, as when the floor manager cut carefully 
into the satin surface 
of a triple-decker chocolate cherry torte 
only to send a jagged crack 
sprawling across its top, the cake blemished 

beyond anything we could sell 
so that after closing I went home to devour a good half of it 
at midnight 
in the grassy backyard of the apartment I rented 
that year—the dark 
of its chocolate rhyming with the dark above me
between the stars, my body 
simply a wet mouth 

in a universe of appetite where hunger
is the thread binding lions to gazelles and fruit flies
to orange peels, summoning 
stockbrokers to hot dogs and raccoons to garbage cans 
rattling at night under stars
that are themselves hungers devouring hydrogen 
in the devouring
dark, dark in which every knuckle 

and hair of me is fuel, sustenance and one day 
perhaps even delight
for another. And I’ve read of light shining
from the body of the saint
fasting in his cave but what of hunger’s light 
shining ferocious 
in the eyes, what of lust for fresh watermelon 
or the salt-alphabet of pretzels 

in a plastic bag, what of that gladdening desire 
for blueberries, beef 
jerky, the green moon-rise of a ripe 
avocado? O ravenous light 
by which I map  my way, by which I see the drooping tip 
of the pizza slice’s 
sauce-mottled triangle glistening 
with oils, the chunk

of cheesecake lavish with raspberries, topped 
by a whorl of cream—
but who is it
who wants, is it my gut or my tongue or the wild 
summer animal
of my belly, who is this one 
so joyously desperate to take grilled cheese sandwiches
and fresh-picked grapes 

still beaded with water from their rinsing 
and make them a part of myself, to crackle the chocolate bar open 
and glory it down
into my bones? As though I were simply a fire 
dressed briefly 
in a name, a want alive only in the rhythm
of its wanting. 
And sometimes when sitting before a thrill of pancakes 

smeared with butter I’ve caught myself 
longing to be hungry
forever, like some legendary goat-king
of the ancient world who craved such a hunger 
and was given it
by the gods so that he ate a whole pig from snout
to tail, then a skewer crammed 
with roast duck and onions followed by three grilled 

sparrows, a steaming bucket of red potatoes boiled
in their jackets, a barrel swirling 
with goat milk 
and honey—and when these delights 
proved not enough started in 
on the candles, the forks, the table itself until finally 
in the agony of want 
that his luxury had become he cried out to Zeus 

who sent a rainstorm 
down from the clouds to thunder the flesh
from his bones, his human body 
cascading off him to reveal the bear within 
and beneath that bear 
a deer, his body a bestiary of wants 
quickly worn down from rabbit to squirrel to beetle 
and finally to the worm

he was: last inhabitant 
of the self, little gut 
without a body but still writhing with its pinkish sorrows 
and joys, ravenous and desperate, hungry
for dirt. 
Hunger that plays us
and flays us, chorus of the body’s song, ever-returning wind
frazzling the grass. And in the end 

after searching the bright agonies of those aisles and finding
nothing, after a crunchy trudge 
through the snow-piled streets of that little town back
to our hotel room my wife and I decided
that Chinese take-out
was the answer. So she volunteered 
to go back out into the blare of that February 
hour, returning a small eternity

later bearing a plastic bag weighed down with little 
white boxes—each one 
graced with the image of a red pagoda 
as though to say that food    
is our shelter, each one reminiscent of a tropical flower 
in the sure nature
of its unfolding. Inside the first 
there was broccoli in garlic sauce, generous florets 

green as maple trees in the first flush
of spring, the sauce flecked with red pepper flakes 
the crucial color
of blood. Inside the second there was rice 
and the steam that rises out of just-cooked rice like its own true
spirit, warming our faces—O brief
sanctuary, O glad flavor
of this world—even as it vanished into air.