Food Chain

2019-10-01

Give up pretending.
Everything, you know,
everything, sooner or later
gets eaten. Little fish,
big fish, no difference—
the world’s mouth
is on you. Outside the personal,
it even has a certain glory.

When the mouse, in its last
short dash to the grain,
feels the great rush of wings,
in the flash before
the crushing beak descends,
it is finally, luminously, airborne.

In the broad, voiceless,
hours of the night
you have always known
the red beak of

your consummation
awaits you. The choice,
very simply, is this:
What will you give
your own beloved
bones and blood to feed?

Lynn’s book of poetry, Bread and Other Miracles, is available at lynnungar.com.