Hungry   All the conversations stopped when she said, I’ve seen you hungry, and everyone knew what she meant, and one of us thought of red meat hissing over hot coals under blue skies, and one thought of what it is to want and how life is just want want want, and one thought of hunger’s nakedness, how it haunts our dreams with raw shame, and one thought of guns and what some people will do to survive, and one thought of nothing because he’d never been hungry, and one thought of the blessings and miracles that keep us alive, and one thought only in numbers, of seven fires in seven bellies, more or less.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont July 2021