Robert Carr

Close to Hunger


Seems so long ago
I transplanted a globe cypress

The shrub’s taken hold
though I’ve lost a handle on seasons
I believe in summer

Nervous sparrows
hatch young at the green center
of a solstice

I peer down into
yellow open mouths

When I get close to hunger
the broken wings
of angels bat my ears

There’s a memory I’ve tried often
to forget – a nasty thought
that left me
with a copper bell

Reminder we all die
as sparrows swallow dragonflies

I drive a shepherd’s hook through the axis
of my cypress
hang my bell and corpses

Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published in 2016 by Indolent Books and The Unbuttoned Eye, a full-length 2019 collection from 3: A Taos Press. Among other publications his poetry appears in the American Journal of Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Rattle, Shenandoah, and Tar River Poetry. Robert is a poetry editor with Indolent Books and recently retired from a career as Deputy Director for the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org

Next poem

Previous poem

Winter 2021