Hunger, by Mark Elber

The Boating Party, by Pierre Auguste Renoir (France) 1881

Hunger
 
Under the orange-striped canopy
a densely arrayed table of fruit and wine 
corked bottles mating the fragrance of grape and oak
backs bearing hand-sewn cloth and the rainbows of spring
 
toward the banister a straw-hatted man leans back
trimmed beard, thick forearms and biceps of a body
whose hands earn their keep deep in the soil
ushering gourds and roots into the light
the smell of earth and rain in his pores
 
weeds wade in the water
while on the wooden deck
fourteen lives mingle in the May of 1880
and there’s always a peacock in a crowd, a crow self-promoting its prowess         
cawing its intentions to sow and spread itself over the fecund fields 
 
in this parade of plumage
in this concoction of muscle, meat, finery, fertility, the perfumes of pollination
ache and restraint in the pleats of trousers, the press of dresses
this pitch, this moment ripe and redolent, this pulse, this racing in place
 
for close to a century now, dust

Mark Elber

Mark Elber has been published in various journals among which are four issues of Mudfish, Newtown Literary, The Jerusalem Review, Home Planet News, and The Sierra Nevada College Review. He has an MFA from the low residency program for writers at Warren Wilson College and is the author of The Everything Kabbalah Book and The Sacred Now.  Mark was born in NYC and now lives in Fall River, MA.