Hunger ~ National Poetry Month, Day 28

She calmly climbs
The quaking curve
Of my spine
My backbone – Her ladder
Delicate fingers, adept toes
Clinging to vertebrae…

She finds it –
What she seeks…
Hidden in stone
The rusted latch
Just beneath my breastbone.

With a lonesome creak
She pries it open
The tiny cupboard door
And, oh the clatter
That rushes out…
Electric cries of elation
Melancholy moans of despair
Powdery silver moth wings
Glittering amber bone dust
A dry scattering of skeletal leaves
Birds with hell-bent hooked beaks
And, weapons of mass destruction.

She clambers inside
And presses the door
Back into its secret hinges
With a final dull clank
She takes the key
In her thumb and forefinger
And drops it down her throat
Swallowing it,
For eternity.

Among the tender darkness
She finds my heart…
Embracing its ruby red wetness
Like a long lost love
Found
At sea…

“Pleased to meet you,”
She whispers
“My name is Hunger.”
And gentle as a razor
She swandives inside
Her new forever home.