Hunger

I want

Hollow

Vacuum

Sucking in parchment over yellowed ribs

Lungs clutching at thin air

Like a crone’s wizened claw

I want

Not like infatuation

Nor envy, nor greed

More like desperation

But without the passion

I want urgently

But with resignation

I turn my eyes up to plead

And to submit

I want to live

And I want to die

Poet’s statement

My father died of pancreatic cancer a few years ago, and since then other family members and friends have developed cancer. Some have recovered, perhaps temporarily, while for others the prospect is one of inevitable decline, raising questions about when the point is reached where death is preferable to life. This poem expresses the ambiguity of visceral urges which could be towards either continued life or a relieving death.

Thing

Thin, thin, thin

My life is thin

No substance

No interest

Spare

But not ascetic

Pale, hungry

Transparent

Thin, famished, thin

Restless eyes

Restless hands

Wandering

Looking, but

Nothing

No interest

Nothing engages

Thin, gaunt, thin

Teflon fingers

Teflon mind

All slips

Grasped briefly

Not cast aside

Just slips

Thin, fragile

Eggshell fragments

Spare

Sparse

Thin

Poet’s statement

This poem anticipates the feelings generated by age and lingering illness – a sense of mental as well as physical wasting, and a gradual detachment from the world, becoming almost insubstantial. It is an attempt at empathy with my father during the months leading up to his death from pancreatic cancer, during which his physical changes were paralleled by the relinquishment of his plans, intentions and hopes.