For Hunger

You can give a tumor a cute name,

but like a hurricane it still

might kill you. A small body inside

a bigger body, an un-gardening

of limb and trunk.

All day sharks ram

the ocean to keep from drowning,

a constant moving panic. No,

not even sorrow knows her fate.

I love how the fields foam

with wheat.

I love how earth inhabits

many appetites. The baby

gazelle lapping

from the same stream as the hungry

lion, all sun and flame,

each rib a gone-soft gold

in the mouth. All it takes

is two sharp barbs of a hook

to pull a small city up from the sea,

all eyes and flushed gills,

a pearl-grey brokenness

Fear, like a wave ,

looking for something solid to break

against. This hunger that is ours,

for now, for less.

Kristene Kaye Brown is a mental health social worker. She earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has previously been published, or is forthcoming, in DIAGRAM, Columbia Poetry Review, Harpur Palate, Meridian, Nashville Review, and others. Kristene lives and works in Kansas City.