Poem by Luther Jett

HUNGER
 
Two boys and a dog
jumped the fence to steal
an armful of apples.
To tell it later, those
long summer days
were the best of their lives.
 
Over the hills they rambled,
jousting the sun,
dreaming kingdoms in the corn.
Talk of ships
sailing for blue
lands, where hunger never was,
filled nights of stars ripe
for the naming.
 
Left to their own — father
off somewhere,
looking for work or a
drink — mother
home with sister and chickens
that never laid enough eggs
to keep a family going --
pantry nearly bare,
two masonjars of tomatoes,
half-sack of corn-meal,
and a tin of tartar sauce.
 
There was time and scarcely time
to write in years
what followed — how
the old hound bayed her last,
and broad seas claimed
the younger brother, and how
the lands beyond the blue
held hunger enough.
 
It stayed with him,
that boy who grew from story
to story, keeping the best parts,
trying to make it all rhyme.

​W. Luther Jett (Montgomery County, MD) is a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals as well as several anthologies. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks: “Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father”, released by Finishing Line Press in 2015, and “Our Situation”, released by Prolific Press, 2018.
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