Jared Pearce
Obesity Epidemic
We gulped all the light we
could glut, shutting down
the shamrocks and spoiling
the apples on their stems.
Particle by particle, wave
after wave, we let in the
dark, believing we were
stuffed impregnable,
yet over the days the ways
crumble into night, bats
take flight, the lightening
bugs die across the great states:
like trying to snatch the ocean
glitter, it runs from hands
and feels like that funerary
emptiness in the chest.
Feeding on the abyss
we trim, slim to despair,
the fine air; then a trickle,
a breath of light might
strike its match on
our tinder, kindling and mocking
what we had and
again what we want.
Jared Pearce is the author of The Annotated Murder of One (Aubade Publishing, 2018). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Coachella Review, Xavier Review, Breadcrumbs, BlazeVOX, and Panoplyzine, among other journals. Online at jaredpearcepoetry.weebly.com.
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