Cravings #1
Cravings #2
Cravings #3
Cravings #4
i taste the lunar
violence
as i imagine it to be
a moth-worm’s echo
in a place too cold
to matter much
& yet there are explosions
that can take me there
to be an animal
pressed against
the tuning fork
of this rock’s sloshing
before it can empty
into itself before it
can empty into me
the festering
is immediate
the teeth cannot
lift the art
of the meal
it must be raised
& what is lost
in that raising
is a different meal
is an orphan
of the artist’s intent
to be a whole thing
just in
the finishing
of anything at all
it is far less about what is
inside of the egg
than it is about holding
the egg long enough
for someone to take
a picture of you holding
the egg without looking
too horny to put the egg
in your mouth
that is why the chickens
live all over the city now
they know we cannot
consume the dictionary
without shouting the big
words before we do
the ugliness sleeps
the same as the beauty
tucked inside
the coarse brawl of want
& want so much more
Darren C. Demaree is the author of sixteen poetry collections, most recently “a child walks in the dark” (Harbor Editions, November 2021). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.
