Close Menu
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
MER – Mom Egg Review
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
NEWSLETTER
MER – Mom Egg Review
You are at:Home » Elinor Ann Walker – Poetry

Elinor Ann Walker – Poetry

0
By Mom Egg Review on September 14, 2023 Poetry

Elinor Ann Walker

I will hunger

“the wind, the wind,/ the heavenly child”—Hansel and Gretel

“Don’t confuse hunger with greed;
And don’t wait until you are dead.”—Ruth Stone, “Advice”

 

All paths lead toward hunger.
Hunger is a snarling wolf,
a house of confection,
the sweet that rots the tooth,
the cramp that drowns her,
an ogre, an ache in the voice
of a mother, stepmother, witch.
They say to the children,
do not stray off the path,
do not ask for anything.

In her small hands, hunger
dissolves like sugar; in his,
a breadcrumb turns to dust,
a brittle measure, poof! Lost.
A crumbling map, a stone
to fill up the wolf. Pebbles
like coals in a stove turn
to cinder, vanish. Fingers
pinch the fat; fat sizzles.

Don’t follow the forest
trail to a thicket of need
where briars catch, pull
at hair, scratch the skin,
strip tenderloins of flesh.
Berries burst. Blood attracts
the ravenous creatures
in the hollows and houses.
The maw is the mother, her
mouth, the oven, the hope
that appetite leaves you,
gaping, wild, sated.

And the mother
swallows nothing but her
tongue, her words ash on
a cigarette’s tip; she stands up
straight, her pencil skirt tight
around her waist; sweater
cropped; high heels make her
taller. She wears them to look
slimmer, define her calves, counts
calories heart by heart, handful
by handful, until she disappears
into the wind, the wind.

 

Elinor Ann Walker (she/her) holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, lives near the mountains, and prefers to write outside. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Bracken, Cherry Tree, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Jet Fuel Review, Nimrod, Northwest Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Plume, The Southern Review, and Terrain.org, among others. She has recently completed a full-length manuscript of poetry and two chapbooks. Find her online at https://elinorannwalker.com.

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleKashiana Singh – Poetry
Next Article Raeshell Sweeting – Poetry

Comments are closed.

Recent VOX Posts
May 1, 2025

MER Poem of the Month – May 2025

April 14, 2025

Something New – Haiku! by Sarah Mirabile-Blacker

April 1, 2025

MER Poem of the Month – April 2025

March 13, 2025

MOTHERING ALONE

March 13, 2025

Julia C. Alter – The Nursing Chair

March 13, 2025

Ana María Carbonell – Ledger & Vermouth

March 13, 2025

Savannah Cooper-Ramsey – By Four Months

March 13, 2025

Jill Crammond – When I Sell My Wedding Ring at the Pawn Shop

March 13, 2025

Kelsey Jordan – I Find a Blond Hair in His Laundry

March 13, 2025

Laurin Becker Macios – Mama, Look

March 13, 2025

Kali Pezzi – I Treat My Postpartum Depression With Friends on Facetime

March 13, 2025

Sara Quinn Rivara – Single Motherhood Was My Superpower

March 13, 2025

Adrie Rose – Climate Strike

March 13, 2025

Wendy Mannis Scher – Memo to the Absent

February 28, 2025

Poem of the Month – March 2025

January 30, 2025

Poem of the Month – February 2025

January 2, 2025

Poem of the Month – January 2025

December 12, 2024

Jennifer Case – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Derek Davidson – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Amy Gallo Ryan – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Melissa Mowry – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Sharon Dolin – Poetry

December 12, 2024

Jennifer Garfield – Poetry

December 12, 2024

Amy Lee Heinlen

December 12, 2024

Vicki Iorio – Poetry

Archives
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Submit
  • Contact
MER - Mom Egg Review
PO Box 9037, Bardonia, NY 10954
Contact merliterary@gmail.com

Copyright © 2025 MER and Mom Egg Review

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.