by Jennifer Pons
I have a belly that stays hungry–
years of a belly-eating belly— deep inside
Sometimes the growling reminds passersby
that I am just a woman with as much hunger as a man
Some men eat perpetually
The people cheer “Eat, men, eat!”
From curbs and cars happy men
shoot guns into the sky— “Eat, men, eat!”
Child-women with big bellies line the streets
as crowds of men in the man-garb walk by happy
as if only men feel hungry
Goodness, I am hungry all the time
My belly heaves empty
My hands can’t dig roots quick enough
Imagine hungry women with churning bellies
crouching for locusts and wondering
how to forgive the men for eating everything in between
It’s a straw house I think the men and their full bellies
who refuse to build houses of brick who carry guns
and bomb beds and burn paths
Sadly, women can’t eat straw and live
But some —in search of brick houses—
eat locusts to protect from sky swarms
of shrapnel and bullet bits and men who eat everything
::
Jennifer Pons is a high school literature and writing teacher in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in Across the Margin, Whale Road Review, EKSTASIS Magazine, Residual Believers, and CutBank Flash Prose and Poetry Online, where she was named a finalist in the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. Her manuscript Locusts and Wild Honey was a finalist for the Pamet River Prize 2020.
Image: David Clode