Murray, My

FEED ME
caterwauler?a meat-sack
with another meat-sack for a pet, I
tended hunger?his and mine, the baby moles
he bat to death, the low-slung
hunt near the sink
for chicken grease?my
teacher-beast?he liked it

raw or cooked or canned or kibbled, he’d
clip a claw to my lower lip
if I was asleep?so that I’d
pad to the kitchen and slop his bowl
with seafood medley or chicken-beef, I’d
grab him up?squeeze so tight I thought I’d
pop, croon
silly silly silly silly and watch his eyes
close down to slits, I

tended hunger?it was on my mind a lot
as I watched the climate curl and bang, were you
watching too? Wondering if you’d
hesitate to eat your cat
in the new extreme
of flood and flame, I had a brute
hypochondria
about the future’s body?all around me

summer burst its sack of seeds
in trumpet horns of purple blue I loved
so much I cut them once
to bring inside?where they
promptly died?and thus
I knew?no matter how much
I loved the world, to hunger
was to be
a destroyer?