What Feeds on Want

6 7 R W H A T F E E D S O N W A N T J O H N R Y B I C K I I row with the wind in my apple-wood skin, maw on crow’s dust and raw turnips. What feeds on want behind the masks of houses? I pinch the flames to undo the blouses of lit windows where men kneel to worship in flesh a fiery blossom. I row with the wind past houses where mothers throw flames to the walls for their kin. They part back one rib, pinch at their own embers to blur away the dark. Bravery behind the masks of houses. Love of mine, with your button-down castle in a blouse of gray bricks, you toss skin blankets over your girls, yet furnish your wolf with no clothes. I maw on the wind and the burnt summer grasses. Since time began, spit from the womb, rolled round in broken glass, I have come to worship what feeds on want behind the masks of houses. No one unbuttons your skin, or drinks the scent from your blouses; nor wets your eyelids with kisses; nor warms your mask with curses. I row with the wind in my apple-wood skin, maw on love’s fire shining in the masks of houses. ...