"I'm Hungry!"

My eyes are like wildflowers wrapped in straightjackets.
Lions sleeping in cold cages; falcons walk on the tips of lakebeds.
Sometimes, when I dream, I can’t speak, I can’t see,
Anything but the blindness of my eyes staring at the back of me.

I hear about the soldiers in far off Guam, the country with the name
That sounds like twin cities;
And how we live, and the things we do, sound like list after list after
List;
Sometimes, we read magazines; sometimes, wives take cereal to their
Husbands in boxes,
And how old men named Marc and Liam think themselves better
Than others, and waste their money on the tracks, on gum, on
Whispers in the dark-

The stars, late at night, are like eyes that stare down on the world,
And watch over it, watch over it, waiting, and how Michael and Charles
Are like shadows that pour down stone walls,
And we think and we think but we can’t find the words to say.

“I’m hungry,” she said, and he brought her cheese and wine on
a gold tray,
and the bird outside wouldn’t chirp,
and the room refused to breathe.