Hungry Poem

Rennie Ament

The dietitian said peanutbutter not butter,one egg, be spinach, find a walnut.Less juice, more lack.Not my kind of punishment, though.If she only said green, the color of lightbounced off a leafcan enter your mouth,that would have appealed to me.Mom said Dad, Dad said Mom.It was almost as if they could stop growingand be a tree stump.Later, at the Hare Krishna free vegetarian feast,I ate insincerelybowls of BBQ tofu chunks. Avoided eyesby staring at the chunky menstrual sauce.I sniffed the old chemical mark.Nobody had my head in their hands.This is the oldest song in the world.It was carved into a clay tablet.God I was hungryfor mighty is the Lordin his lack of mindfulness.

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Rennie Ament is the author of Mechanical Bull (CSU Poetry Center, 2023). She lives in Maine.

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Brianna Di Monda

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Alyssa Perry

The Cleveland Review of Books is a journal of criticism in many forms. We publish reviews, essays, interviews, and experiments in critical writing. We also publish fiction, poetry, and excerpts of titles from small and independent publishers.

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