"Hunger is the Question"

The Thousand Pound Man dreams...

He is a buzzard, crouched on the bone-
white pyramid of his memories, gnawing
ancient babies, stiff, cold and dry.
Their brittle cries rattle the wind.

He is a spider, floating among invisible
chords, festooned with musty victims
bound by his yarn, hung in cool vaults
awaiting the timid tug, the stumbling
arousal far out on the edge; the plunge
of hot needles, the red fade into darkness.

He is an anteater; ant-people
scuttle far below: shirtless, shoeless,
tattoos of Jesus and snakes. Pabst
guzzlers, slick hair on over-sized
heads. He eats them all, one by one.

He is chaos washing against
tomorrow's perfect lover;
staunch as a lighthouse
on a dark coast. She flashes
purple kisses before his storm,
breath humid; penetrates his coiled
silence, the fossiled callus grown
'round his frenzied screams.

The Thousand Pound Man dreams
he has the answer: a dog, a cloud,
rain in the gutter, the sound
of wind; he can almost touch
it, feel the slick contours
of its face, taste yellow truth
on its lips. If it whispers,
he'll know its name.

============================

Kurt Covin has published in "Explorations", "Shooting Star Review", "The ACORN", "Webster Studies". He have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and won first place in the Pacific Northwest Writers' Conference Writing Contest in 1994. This fall he will begin a two year Masters program in Creative Writing at the University of California, Davis.

kcolvin@foothill.net (K. Colvin)