The Last Hunger

Her tongue carves grace

            before regret, feeds

on the wind until darkness

            fails, until death

skins a thousand trees

to build its castle.

            Struggle forgets her fragrance.

            Cold empties her name.

Lynne Jensen Lampe's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Isthmus Online, South Florida Poetry Journal, and New Letters. Past jobs include teaching children in a psychiatric hospital, political organizing in Seattle, and designing book covers for a feminist press. Now she edits books and journals in Columbia, MO.