Hunger

by Catherine Chandler

By January he begins to spot
the whitetail, lying still along the shoulder
of Pennsylvania’s roads. As days grow colder,
winter gives the trucker food for thought.
He rolls by, shakes his head as if to say,
Dumb animals, continues on his run
to Scranton, barrels down Route 81,
where loaded semis claim the right-of-way.
He wonders at the annual mistake,
this wandering from woods and hills, and whether,
despairing of alder, tamarack and heather,
a starveling doe, this snowy night, will break
into the clearing, freeze in the headlights’ glare,
pay for desire with blood and bones and hair.

2
July, 2009

Catherine Chandler, an American and Canadian citizen, is a teacher, translator and university administrator. She has lectured in Spanish at McGill and Concordia Universities in Canada, her country of residence since 1972.

Catherine’s poems and Spanish and French translations have been published in numerous print and online journals, magazines and anthologies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. A Pushcart Prize nominee and finalist in the 2008 Howard Nemerov Sonnet competition, Catherine is the author of For No Good Reason (The Olive Press, 2008). Her second book, A Thousand Smithereens, is scheduled for publication in 2009.

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