poetry

To the bear that ate an entire 10 lb bag of sunflower seeds in my front yard this morning:

When I lived in New York, and of course you
can’t know this, or even understand
what I mean by New York—its lonesome
singular glow on the horizon as I came
by bus across the New Jersey marsh,
the lights just as humbling as those I saw last week
while driving the back roads after midnight
I passed an incandescent cow milking parlor,
beasts rustling in their stalls, an island
like a hollowed out flame—everything was hard
to come by. The bodies on the street
contracted against the cold or the smell of stained
pavement, and most of all, always each other.
The January I moved to the city, there were four
blizzards. My lover rode the train in on weekends
and we left the apartment only for sweaty, thin slices
they sold on the corner or the occasional bottle of wine.
We were always hungry, and it seemed ineffable to us,
what it was we wanted, and then, of course,
whether or not we could have it. I saw that in you, too,
the way you hoarded your pile of stolen seeds,
your resistance, that glum desire. When we took things—
like the man I once saw run out the door
of the Associated Grocery on 103 rd, canned goods
dropping from his pockets and into the snow banks,
the heavy tuna and soup making neat little shafts
where the light shone only dimly on their
aluminum tops—they felt earned.

More poems:
Memory, Eight Years Old