Hunger for the Gentle (Poem)

Hunger for the Gentle

You write your pain
out the way a missile finds

its target and just lets go.
You push that button

labeled "publish" and
you're done, except you're not.

You check back in, needing to see
who shows up for your main course

how your latest meal
of lacerating words is consumed

whether it's being eaten whole
brittle bones sinew hide and all

leaving you little satisfied

or spit back at you
with tongues as acid as your own.

I want to tell you I don't hunger
for what you're serving up

any more. I want you to leave
your untested recipes in the drawer

that holds your mixes of blames and failures
and one or two lost loves. I want you

to scrape what you've been feeding us
into the disposal once and for all

start cooking again like a pro
with the soft grip of our hands

on your shoulders used to heaving
then wonder at the next crowd

you draw around your table
without a protest of what's so wrong

with you. Go after the sweetest fruits
of the spirit you can collect and eat raw

warm or ice cold doesn't matter.
Make up that new dish the one called

I am I am I am and am loved

and ever after
hunger only for the gentle

remind me:
you are you are you are and are loved.

© 2010 Maureen E. Doallas. All Rights Reserved.
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This poem might work for tomorrow's Blog Carnival, or not.  I'm letting it go now, though, as I have another poem that I wrote yesterday that I plan to submit after the link widget is available.