Women are Never Hungry

Women are never hungry
you see, through the artists eyes
they are but food, noodle-like,
long, voluptuous or nubile
and ham-med in,
always sitting beside
upon but never at the table
women are to be consumed.

women are never hungry
as through the system of servitude
they make and make food,
stirring, chopping, assembling.
even on local train seats
in a city of equal opportunity
as men in the other compartment
only jostle, women converse
cut, chop and pack
in bags, boxed-in.
they are always between
the kitchen and the table
even when they are placed
they are between plates.

they cannot be hungry
those who always see food
and prepare it so other bellies
may be filled, too much cooking
kills the appetite, as does
waiting to eat.
some have appetite only for praise
from their husband’s lips
and tell of how their bellies fill
when they watch
their never-hungry
always-hungry
children eat.

women are never hungry
if they must compete
with strokes etched
on the blank white page
of heterosexual male rage,
so they can fit
into clothes made for
stretched children
or a little flesh arranged
angularly upon jutting bones
hanging from hangers,
bodies like clothes
carved through the ink
of patriarchy-as-capitalism,
lined goods upon paper-bone.

they may embrace glory
in a shining male dominated
imagination, if they have shaved,
like every hair from their body
and pulled straight that upon
their fiery heads to hide pride
race or intelligence,
all traces of hunger from skin.
gluttony is a sin
that doesn’t wait for hell
to punish women.
women are never hungry
you see, as there are so many
empty joys to fill themselves with
if they keep folded
and under wraps their needs
as they wrap and knead.

fat in flesh and in words
is what makes
a woman threatening
she must not take up space
in language or body
she must be shamed
for hunger or lack of it
for her relationship with food,
the thing that sustains and enriches,
across her horizon must remain
unevenly distributed,
rising only to (be)set.
she may have removed
her apron for the belt
but she must give evidence
of how it winds and encircles
not a stomach but a womb
and a hunger-less waist.

women are never hungry
unless they are pregnant
for then they may finally
choose food,
they now have a ruse
another human being
by default a son
is waiting to be born,
thus hunger in woman,
to feed her invisible daughter
and her unhatched son,
may finally be born.
without purpose
women’s hunger would mean
that they possess
mouths and tongues
that speak for their wants alone
to be hungry is to show
evidence of desire, of humanity
and women are hungry
you see, only to feed.