Lizzy Burnam 🐞

hunger is a reptile 
sunbathing in the heat 
of your belly.

some nights you slept while 
hunger spoke, more by the eye
than by the hand: “any man

fool enough to be bitten 
by a beast like me deserves to die.”
you hadn’t forgotten yet,

but you were fool enough. 
you were almost dead
anyway, smitten 

by the silhouette 
of your body rotting 
from the inside out. 

you plugged your nose.
you rose like bread, or the moon, 
or the flat bone in your chest. 

you wrote a list:
pistachios, salmon, sauerkraut.
you sealed the room 

with wet towels and dishcloths 
and told the children 
you were baking.

later, upon waking, 
you peeled your melted ear 
from the grill

and drank from a mason jar 
of delusion. hunger 
bestowed three small gifts: 

a fingertip dipped in salt, 
a jigger of scotch, 
and one black olive on a toothpick.