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.