Claudia

17

Hunger

the dream: sand dunes into glass, the sky streaked
with gold, and everyone wanting & ill with envy. After I gave

my hamster away, years ago, he was left in a car while his new
owner dined at a restaurant. He died of the sun beating its steady
hands on the glass, of fur blackened with sweat, of a wild

soundless heart. Earlier that year, he had escaped
his cage for six weeks, until I found

him starving in the bathroom with skin loose
as bedsheets, fur lighter than thumbprints. He didn't die
then, not of his own matchstick bones and gaunt snout,

but waited until later, to die of someone else's hunger.
In my dream, everyone's hands stretch forward, pressed

together in prayer or desperation. These summer days,
the wash of fruit flies dipping into bowls of red wine, insects

cradling the humid air and worshipping the heat
with grating cries & the rub of their back legs,

I wake to clouds plated with silver:
the world trying to hold on to its richness
until all water has been lost.