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Nice work!!!!

[Lindsey Royce]

REVISION:

THE HUNGER

At seventeen, I believed traveling was internal,
that the richness of the mind and emotions
could be played like any country’s traditional
instruments. Since then, I’ve dined on Tibetan

yak and buttered tea and seen the Eiffel Tower ablaze
at night. Eager to take place all in, pals and I walked
through French lavender fields, on Alps’ snowfields,
all under the world’s same quicksilver sky.

One museum, I forget which, offered stark,
white walls and a domed roof with little windows
that let in a blue mosaic: one of sky’s good moods.
At home, my husband, in our cabin of splintered

wood and metal roof looked out at the wide,
Colorado blue-sky, nature his museum,
he was not Louvre-impressed. When I’d return
from my trips, he and I sat outdoors in canvas chairs,

waiting for sunset, cold beers in our hands,
our dogs darting and barking on silver-green fields
whose hills arched to kiss the darkening sky.
Sun began to drop her coat of many colors:

I’d call his beard Jacob’s coat because
of the red, brown, blonde, and white mix–
beautiful and exotic, no beard like it.
The coroner gave me the clippings in a Ziploc,

so, I can still run my fingers through
the coarse hair in remembrance. Now, I eye the sky,
a blues song, and I see, at a distance, trucks
speeding down the highway, maybe

as fast as the cancer took him. I would hitchhike
if I could travel away from myself. Instead, I count
only the trucks as they kick gears into vivid sunset.
I count them on my fingers: alone, alone, alone.
But—

Is anyone alone? When our dogs lope
through tall summer grasses and bull-thistles snag
their coats, when memory recalls the exact scent
on our bodies when he and I made love,

when I can cook and serve his favorites—
steak au poivre, bechamel mac n cheese—
And you friends, yes you, stews given, hangdog condolences,
you travelers who venture through our story all along.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Lindsey Royce.

Mary Elizabeth, This poem is poignant. I especially like the turn when the speaker addresses the mother directly. –Lindsey