#MIDDLEBURY
Why Eat Why Kill
Abraham Smith
how hunger boy
mercer must you
brain crane lay
over lap one
dream broom
person starved
down chaff
rain pencil
shaving ego
peck of
pimpled flesh
on fire
eat burnt crane
eat burnt crane
eat burnt crane
who your gods then
while you wait
for the soupbird to unshade yr life
in who the cleated teeth
of rain
in mist
in whom the fired
sibilant remnants
a passing
storm’s little
unsuccessful denials
of fire
inside every song
another song
fruit teaches this
white sun flesh
the seed at the breast
thread wrestled button the
crane
burnt
eaten
can’t stack a day’s
strength a night’s
rest at the unravel hotel
truly hungry fools
dream too but
not of confluences
not of gardenias
not of pedigrees
not the stony feats of insomniac sentinels
mothered
by the
killing maze
milk like junk wool
milk like gauze
milk like hesitancy
might as well
eat your own cane
god and crawl
About this poem
“‘Why Eat Why Kill’ is the first poem in a newly begun manuscript within which I consider cranes. They’ve meant so much to me: the songs and statures of deeper dirt time and dearer personal safety; they’ve meant so much to everyone, everywhere: loci of loyalty and devotion. I am delighted to bow – if awkwardly – toward my buoy birds for a time.” – Abraham Smith
About Abraham Smith
Abraham Smith is the author of “Ashagalomancy” (Action Books, 2015). He teaches at the University of Alabama and splits his time between Ladysmith, Wis., and Tuscaloosa, Ala.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Abraham Smith. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
