Hunger

“And your hunger is not for experience
but for understanding, ....” Louise Gluck

I fear for you in this,
that why will eat you from the inside
out to the thin layer of touch. Itself
a proof of sorts, that we
do not occupy the same space,
are not concentric.

The whys are different,
why we stay, and why we go
comfort only ourselves,
and simply prove
(to those of some other hunger)
that we were both crazy
blind in one way or another.

Their hunger protects them.
They collect these cracked fearsome why's?
Write them on the gatepost,
under new wallpaper. Wrap
all the rest in scraps of linen,
bury them in jars in the garden
warding off this madness.