Hunger
Jamaica Baldwin
A child who’s never heard her voice catch wind will understand the absence of a father
to be an albatross in her belly, an albatross she sings to, a night-feeding so consistent it’s ritual,
so ritual it’s holy, like the view from the hostel window in Amsterdam that summer long ago.
The view from the hostel window in Amsterdam that summer long ago looked out at other
windows of other rooms, a hexagon of lonely travelers, not all sleepless, not all counting
each fallen leaf through a windstorm of pigeons whose hunger is not a lullaby one can sleep to.
“Hunger is not a lullaby one can sleep to” is written on the cardboard sign next to the man
standing on the side of the road, whose burdens are carried like fungus between all the forgotten
crevices of his body, like the spoils of a life he bled for, but never savored, like the promises
he made, but never kept, to the daughter who tries to forgive all those demons on his back.
The daughter who tries to forgive all those demons on his back stares at the man sitting
on a bench stained with layers of Pollock-splattered bird droppings, tossing bread
to a flock of pigeons, whose hunger is a low-pitched gurgle that rumbles like a song
trapped in the throat of a child who’s never heard her voice catch wind.
~~~~~
Jamaica Baldwin is a graduate of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Pacific University Oregon and a 2017 Jack Straw Writer’s Fellow. She’s had her poetry published in Rattle and the Seattle Review of Books, where she was the March 2017 poet in residence. She lives in Seattle and is currently working on her first book.