did I wait for
him to come love me? Lord!
I was starving! But hard as his
heart was

it was
food to me. Why
I had to bite my way
to that poor blinded and bleeding
thing. A

demon
I was. Must have
smelled the blood. On some nights
between cold sheets and closed eyes I’d
feel the

dark soft
ringlets, as if
his head already lay
on that pillow there waiting for
my love

to touch.
I’d feel that man’s
skin beneath my hands, his
curls sliding between my fingers.
My hands

traveling
his neck, his chest,
his belly. Trace and taste
sweet bites of ribs, of tender thigh,
morsel

of neck
meat. Must have cast
a mighty spell on him
gobbling him up like that in dreams.
He came

to me
on a Sunday.
The mountains moved closer.
I heard a whippoorwill at noon.
He knocked.

I knew
it was him and
there he stood. Said he was
eaten up by melancholy.
Eaten

by a
sorrow. Me on
his mind all the time. He
didn’t show his heart to any
body.

Truly
I have married
meat and bread. As sure as
this banquet passes my lips, love
is food.

From WHAT TRAVELS WITH US: POEMS (LSU Press, 2005)
Used with permission of the author and LSU Press.