Birthmark

Hunger

 Hunger The morning after their son is born, he goes home to feed the cats. He drives through Ghent, with its thick Victorians, & crosses the tracks to the edge of Riverview where the same-styled homes stand, though the paint peeling from each shutter makes them seem ruined somehow. At the stoplight, he watches a transvestite slowly cross the street. Her body hunched, protective, she is nursing a cup of coffee, & the steam that rises now, the soul of it, its warmth vanishes in front of her face. He thinks of their son, newborn, sealing his lips to his mother’s breast, & it is this thought that he carries across the Lafayette Bridge, the cold water stirring underneath. At home, the cats lick their bowls clean. ...