Ruminating hungers that I’ve had
since reading Rabelais—
Appetite grows by eating—I recollect
how only plump chicks—fat smiles,
gravitas in their cleavage—
gravitated my way as a teen,
like I was buttered bijou popcorn.
Weighing in at matinees, drinks, Milk Duds,
Jordan Almonds, Reese’s—we’d paw,
knead, and neck through double features,
licking Snickers off each other’s fingers.
Could we have sensed, in our innocence,
the power of appetite—tipping the balance
towards increase, fudging the way life’s portion
melts before you’re finished? I cleaned
my plates, had seconds, too. Famished,
not knowing why.
Today on Sunday china I see myself
all wavy in the gravied glaze and watch
my children’s children graze as I have all my life
on the big, dumb tits of luck and plenty.
Curtis Derrick’s work has appeared in Willow Springs, Poet Lore, The Beloit Poetry Journal, and other magazines.