Hunger I awake with a new hunger this morning, one that can’t be satiated with food. It is an emptiness hollowed out in me like a quarry. The way the vast stillness of space swallows any sound. I get up and make coffee, the kitchen still quiet in the predawn darkness. It is a large cup, and after drinking it, I feel like an inland sea. I notice a ship sailing through the horizon of my ribs; it is filled with blue horses, the kind that you might find in a Chagall painting. Surrounded by them on the beach, I look for apples to offer, but the horses lead me to a pasture where they graze. Not sure what to do, I watch in silence until one of them nudges me. I look up and see the sun rising like a mosaic and, for a moment, feel myself becoming stained glass. in the desert the long search for mana
Keith Polette has published poems in both print and online journals. His book of haibun, pilgrimage, received the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award in 2021.
Amethyst Review 