Day Of Ash And Hunger Poem by Michael Brosky

She was crossing the cape of fears, driving eighty-five
Just after a new moon before the coming sunrise
Leaving a little and a lot behind her taillights
See it fall into those hungry waters still alive
Was it the sun in the mirror or tears in her eyes?
The speed was not fast enough to outrun all those sights
On a day of ash and hunger, you make your way straight and true
Accept the blame, feed the need, and do whatever you can do
The wish-fog drifted out over the hospital grounds
The nurses came and went, filled charts and moved around tubes
Ghost babies wailed and only the living babies heard
Not much they could do about it, both were out of bounds
Scenes of life, death, rejection, playing in endless loops
Sent away to seek repentance, reeled by what occurred
On a day of ash and hunger, you make your way straight and true
Put your head down, crash straight into your fears, and then push on through
She was crossing the cape of fears, driving eighty-five
Trying to forget how it was to hold love for a spell
The infant in the purple light did not know fear yet
The fear is taught, it grows the longer you are alive
Breathing in the sins of the world, never to expel
You can cross that cape of fears, but you cannot forget
All of those days of ash and hunger, you try for straight and true
But it is hard to be forgiven with that fear inside you