Hunger never sleeps

My hunger dreams were always scrappy

carrots, slender- tender

ribs charred to tenderness

blood-staining  juice  on

creamy heaps of hot potatoes

piled high just out of  reach.

Only, I was heavy as an iron beam

too cumbersome to move.

I had no memory of how I ended up so failed

on the  frozen fields where I lay  

pinned down,fever -hot with crisping rancor.  

It was the babies wailing for a while in

their soiled skin smell  that made me move.

I  scooped both of them up, one for each tit,
held them tight to my body, them
rooting and slipping out of their messy clothing,
ready to lip

their way out of hunger and cold.

Then, all warm,
we dreamt of sugar canes 

for our sweet- juicy- sloppy lips.
My limbs, still heavy with sleep
kept shutting the door
to keep the wind out
and the dream in.