One Kind of Hunger

The Seneca carry stories in satchels.

They are made of  pounded corn and a grandmother’s throat.

The right boy will approach the dampness of a forest with a sling, a modest twining wreath for the bodies of  birds. A liquid eye.

When ruffed from leaves, the breath of  flight is dissolute.

What else, the moment of  weightlessness before a great plunge?

In a lost place, a stone will find the boy.

Give me your birds, she will say, and I will tell you a story.

A stone, too, admits hunger.

The boy is willing. Loses all his beaks.

What necklace will his grandmother make now.

The sun has given the stone a mouth. With it, she sings of what has been lost.

She sings and sings and sings.

The boy listens, forgets, remembers. Becomes distracted.

The necklace will be heavy, impossible to wear.