Hungry in America

-->I count bread slices

2 each day is still

a day without

!/2 an avocado will last 8 days

but they ripen into urgency

one is gone already

the frozen fish is six days

the stringbeans, too
nothing lasts for seven

there will always be
one empty belly waking

40 years ago I was hungry

as I worked on the degrees

I thought would feed me

And they did for awhile

The weather has changed

Spring is cold, the insects

swarm on the warm days

As if they know  that night

will kill them how

short their tiny lives

have become.