Poems by Emily-Sue Sloane

Hollow-Eyed Hunger

the shopping list
on the fridge
gets longer
as portions
shrink and
hollow-eyed hunger
deepens

if tears and worry
could be cashed in
like chips at a casino
there’d be no
waiting in line
at the food bank

no asking
over and over
how all those hours
at a job — or two
don’t add up

This poem won first place in the 2023 Babylon Village Arts Council Poetry Contest and was first published in Disconnects and Other Broken Threads by Emily-Sue Sloane (The Poetry Box, 2024).

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​A Nickel Apiece

A beat-up Corolla idles,
trunk agape, as a woman
dressed in drudgery
inspects a recycling bin
at the end of a driveway
waiting for the town
to collect and sort
and do whatever it is they do
with the plastic, metal
and glass containers
in the name of protecting
the environment

which they don’t say
includes the chain of profit
with its promises of freshness
in our food if not the landfills,
the sea, the air, and
in the name of easing
our angst about so much trash
and the way it can whip up
a storm so fierce
it will topple trees and carve
new ocean pathways
through island barriers.

The woman, intent
on her sifting, plucks
soda cans and beer bottles
that she’ll cash in
for nickels, winnings
she might or might not use
to buy fuel for body and car.
She feels eyes on her, looks up.
A wave to the homeowner
seals a pact of mutual
gratitude and forgiveness.

This poem first appeared in Evening Street Review and then in Disconnects and Other Broken Threads by Emily-Sue Sloane (The Poetry Box, 2024).

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At the Edge of Hunger
                                          Trivandrum, Kerala, India

Lights on fishing boats
paint a necklace
on the edge of night
as they slide past land’s end
to trawl darkened depths
for their nightly haul
counterweight
to the hunger
that awaits
their dawn return.

This poem first appeared in Long Island Quarterly.

Emily-Sue Sloane (EmilySueSloane.com) is an award-winning Long Island poet who writes to capture moments of wonder, worry and human connection. She is the author of a full-length poetry collection, We Are Beach Glass (2022), and a chapbook, Disconnects and Other Broken Threads (The Poetry Box, 2024). Her poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals and anthologies, most recently Walt Whitman 205 Anthology, Poetry Path, Closed Eye Open, Gyroscope Review, Long Island Quarterly and Oberon Poetry.

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