Her Eating Habits

Sandra haunts the food chain                                          
looking for her place in it.                                           
She wishes she really could eat dirt                                
like she was feeding off the planet.
Or that the insects that
nibbled off a chunk of her
had somewhere to go with it.
Or that everything half-empty
wasn't half-dead as well.
Or that the menu got her right.
Or that the juice
would not just be
in the stolen fruit.
Or that she didn't feel such affinity
with the leftovers,
dry and crinkled as grins.
Or that she could sip lakes like horses
freed of harness,
loosened from the air
like flapping sheets,
collapsing in the cool,
in the pleasure of dust.
Or be swallowed by lights
or darkness
completely,
not left behind in small doses,
like an unfinished painting,
like habit,
like the best laid plans of mice and machinery,
trapped, back broken,
or irretrievably rusted.
Or if only she could bite off
more than she could possibly chew
and then spite the world
by swallowing it whole.
Or if just once
the ones who nibbled at her ear

John Grey has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, The Pinch,  South Carolina Review and The Pedestal. with work upcoming in Poetry East and Big Muddy.

SHELFLIFEMAGAZINE : issue #010