Michael Pogachar

In the Den of the Voracious Starver

I have shaved cereal from milk,

slept on books of theory and speech,

measured the tremble, drool, and cascade of percolation

and have broken both nightmares and heaven.

I revoke the wall of cheerless crickets:

on every grass, disturb their post and verse.

Squeeze the window by mixing dusk with wattage.

The mind does not regurgitate to pamper

with its proclamations to self and home;

inside the devastation of dew is the shovel of faith.

But twenty moons from here is flesh

swimming, discarded in drains with sewage.

For what I’ve loved there is no remorse;

I am the dictionary of the deserted.