Name Of Love

Priorities

In the name of pride
I refuse to invest
in words for my hunger
or deposit them on friend and stranger
Announcing the mighty fall
from bank manager
to debt-bound
wheelchair user.

In the name of stubbornness
I sit here
growing thinner
My wrist debited of time
my watch, baggy and slow
Counting the hours of starvation
Appraising those
left for survival.

In the name of desperation
I take stock
of my bankrupt fridge
Even the air is depleted
and out of date
A hollow statement
of my fate

And in the name of hunger
my cat
evaluates my knee
Pads out her insistence
as cheek to cheek
she nuzzles me
in a worried transaction

And so
in the name of love
I relent
Wheel myself to another bank
A repository of kindness
Charity will feed my cat
and in the name of love
I will ask
for what I cannot beg for myself