Hunger

                                                                                         for David Lerner

the 300 pound man cries

                I’m Hungry! So Hungry!

everyone laughs

says you eat enough for 3

are you pregnant?

the 300 pound man is rank

                with desire

saturated

with the scent of unbridled

lust

pregnant with poems

can’t speak or write them

without naming his Hunger

they hear him and laugh

you’re so funny they say

as he rips his heart

from his chest

and hands it bloody still beating

to the first

hands

that reach out to him

the 300 pound man

fails again

and he spits out hot venom

they bathe in it

like tears

salty like oceans

bearing them up while

he sinks

the 300 pound man dark

as hades

before Love had a chance

to feed him

his poems coughed up

like blood

from the lungs of a soul

denied food for too long

the 300 pound man

starved to death

So Funny they said

© 2019 pamela twining