The Unsaid

Poetry is what the poor have left to eat.

The poor are not full
after we've parcelled out the pig’s feet.

We say we create
new food for well-fed
people to eat,

but that’s not right—
only the dead
remain to nibble the pig’s feet.

Is you is or is you ain’t
a zombie?—what Satan said.
Poetry is what the poor have left to eat

after all the ravenous ghosts are swollen up
with their blood,
pig’s feet

long devoured—and the gleaners
have eaten the froggies. The unsaid.
Poetry is how the weary fall asleep
after we've turned down the bedsheets.