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A Certain Kind of Hunger

Josephine Jones

 

We dunk the chickens dad killed in buckets of boiled water.

   Stick with me she says, you’ll love it.

With gloved hands we pull feathers out by the handful.

   You’re half deadly with that crown, girl.

White globs of chicken fat escape the pucker where each feather releases.

   Being wolfish, we are a certain kind of hungry,

cautiously bloodthirsty. The dog ate so much cat food it couldn’t walk,

   but still, it ate the peanut butter.

Hunger is like that.  We find a den of fox kits, tiny white daggers of teeth

   reflecting the moonlight. In nightmares

we are devoured by a giant snake. The tips of our boots sliding down its torso.

   I hate hunger like a snake, but girl, I’d buy your corndogs.

We ride into the lake bareback. This way you can feel the horse beneath, you say.

   We lick long strands of strawberry Laffy Taffy.

Sometimes we spit watermelon seeds into the flower beds. A promise we couldn’t keep.

   In keeping with appearances, I am the mud. Not the lake.

In August, watermelons grew in the flowerbeds. They never gave us watermelon again.

   It becomes impossible to put things back at some point.

We swallow rocks because we need something heavy in our stomachs.

   To keep us from floating away.

The lake is full of dead fish anyway. Drained. This mud will surely drown us.

   Hunger isn’t always the problem, you say, sometimes it’s mother.

A flower whose petals I pluck, toss into dew-soaked grass.

   I am sorry for the way I was then, you understand.

There is no replacement for good Laffy Taffy. For licking something sweet

   until it’s as warm as your tongue. What I mean to say

is that I am sorry for leaving. I know we lost the house, sold the water.

   Still, I wish I was sorrier.

I want a fairy a godmother with bones in her teeth and blood under her fingernails.

   I want more than chickens. More than that.

What I mean to say, is that I am sorry I didn’t come back.

   You see, the sun shines here like gold, girl.

It’s the wind that eats you.

 

 

 

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Josephine Jones

Josephine Jones is a recent participant in the Poetry Collective at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado. Her work has appeared in Poets and Artists O & S, Border Senses, The Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. She was a first finalist for the 2025 Cantor Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2025 Burnside Review Chapbook Contest. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Texas at El Paso.