Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Jacobs: Rationing

Rationing
By Kathryn Jacobs

As if affection were a slice of bread,
and we were fighting for the biggest piece:
that’s all there is of mine; the crust stops here.

Please, don’t devour your children. Pulled apart
like crusty loaves on hungry parents’ plates –
hands off; the next chunk’s mine. I want that hug;
your mother had the last one. Ravenous.

As if a generation came of age
when human hearts were rationed, back-ordered:
A deficit of love. And we grew up
heart-stretched and underfilled: a pump half dry,

still thirsty, sucking – two long taproots deep
in virgin territory, darkening
the shadows of their large and anxious eyes.

Kathryn Jacobs is a poet and a medievalist at Texas A & M with a doctorate from Harvard University and a volume of poetry from Finishing Line Press called Advice Column (December 2008). She has had over seventy poems published in the last two years at various journals, among them: New Formalist, Measure, Washington Literary Review, Cammin, Deronda Review, The Same, Contemporary Rhyme, Ship of Fools, Eclectic Muse, Barefoot Muse, Candelabrum, Mobius, Chimaera, Toasted Cheese, 4 by 14, Wordgathering, Main Channel, The Chaffin, etc. She also has one scholarly book, sixteen articles and two daughters. Her son Raymond died in 2005, at 18.