“Hunger” poetry contest winner

Eating Cats and Dogs

Kesper Wang

I look at my cat and wonder
If I’d eat him in case of some apocalyptic event, or if
He’d eat me, starving, should I suddenly die;
How long it’d take, this unintentional
Orgy of consumption. I stare
At his furry flank, pink
And raw underneath, at times sucked on
By an army of fleas, bloated, all six feet dangling
As his paws knead on the dough of my body; I wonder
How he feels, when his little mouth
Bites vampire-like when my hand gets
A little in the way of his play, or that one time my head got
Caught between his jaws in
A fit of excitement, or my feet
Flicked like mice beneath the covers,
Suddenly becoming his prey.

They say my people
Eat cats and dogs, that we’re
Barbarians, but haven’t you, too,
Looked upon your fat cat sometime with
Desire, or daydreamed about
Shutting the neighborhood dog up
Permanently by boiling him in a soup;
And haven’t these fantasies felt better than
Those stolen looks at your friend’s drumstick leg,
His head of sweet-smelling keratin; or all these
Flesh flowers and sausages we sublime, hidden
In poetry some disguised sweat and pores, giving
Savory scent of taco, gritty skin of burrito,
Salty crust of enchilada; muscles, tendons, sinews enjoined
A dark and white meat beneath a sauce?
Here in America sometimes the pets
Live better than the people, as the people
Eat kibble and wet food, denied they are
Of government benefits; now tell me,
What’s a bite of kitty to all of that?

Even Snoop said: it’s a dog eat dog world.
Only once we rise beyond the slaughterhouse
Through the mess hall to a seat
At America’s dining table can we call it
A doggy dog world.