Hunger

You have placed words within us
To know as the wolf cannot.

The jackal will not turn its nose from meat,
But a fasting father will take no food but that which falls from Your lips.

In hunger hyenas rob bones from their yelping young,
But a milking mother will die shriveled on her bed in quiet contemplation.

Coyotes howl a chorus from the depths of their empty guts,
But a man dices the wind in sibilant whispers cut by the edge of his tongue.

What emptiness can be filled with flesh and blood?
What knowledge tasted in bread and wine?