Today I Will Eat

My mouth hunger begs me for the whole plate of cookies
or my neighbor’s to-die-for brownies, why did she give me four!
or the rest of the popcorn that I covered up but now again uncover.
My mouth hunger doesn’t do vegetables but certain sweets,
or a carb like spaghetti or bread, or jasmine rice,
and it hollers for more, come on, more
than my stomach hunger wants or craves in the least.
I am grateful for food, truly I am. With certain ones you’d think
I was so hungry I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing.

Was there a time it was true? In this life, no,
I’ve never known that empty gnaw, that unrelenting single-minded
fix of attention on finding something to eat.
I’m grateful for food, truly I am. Today on Thanksgiving
there will be Plenty, only not for everyone. Not for the children
trapped in thirteen counties immersed in wars.
As I sit here worrying over eating too much,
there’s famine in Sudan and Gaza. Famine.

Masses of humans right now hungry unto death.
How many hungry right now? 673 million today but numbers
don’t do it, don’t show you the mothers with their skeleton babies,
hungry. But not because of lack of food production.
Plenty there is on the earth, global food is enough!
People right now hungry because of what we do
with distribution, with money. With what we do with our hearts.
Today I will eat. With attention, I will feast, and remember.
I cannot stretch to visualize the millions but today
I will hold in my heart while I give my thanks,
one of those who cannot find a piece of bread.
One mother, searching the dangerous street for food.

©Susa Silvermarie 2025