After a small certainty
there is always the hunger

Sometimes, like weeds break the
ground we want to grow
swiftly, and right now. We don’t
want to wait season after season.
“The old man hobbles down the road
toward the monastery gate,
rests on a roadside stone,
hears clip-clopping of hooves approach
and his faithful companion arrive.”
“For two years she’s been starving herself. Successfully she’s starved out of her consciousness the desire to eat. She’s trained herself to look at other people’s plates, piled high, and to feel disgusted. To think: ‘That’s not my food. My food is waiting in my room. One whole cucumber.’ She’ll weigh herself before and after.”
We might forget everything said or argued,
every war we believed was crucial,
but not this, unspoken truth of being.