can openers

all i can say is there's never
a mouth when you need one.
all the cans with their 
googly-eyed dreams of thanksgiving
for food pantry people like us.
did you know you can 
get whole canned chickens?
we used to slide those animals
from their final captures & sing
to the beast as it went into a crock pot.
i search the drawers for a new god.
one with enough eyes to see
how quickly the end of the world
is coming. there's a soup ladel 
& pasta tongs & enough measuring cups
to keep me sane. i shared a house
with storks in college & they were always
swallowing the can openers.
once i was so hungry i opened
a can of black beans with nothing
but a steak knife. it makes me believe
that if i had to, i could cut an escape hatch
in my life. i'm saving the carcasses  
for future hideouts. i'm holding on
to the crescent moon so that they don't
build hostile architecture to keep us
from sleeping there. so many things
are useless without a companion. 
take this poem. if no one reads this
then isn't this just a can of pilfered eyes.
will you then be my can opener?
careful not to cut yourself 
on the lid. mostly i am cynical.
i believe there is not much i can say
that would change the world. the best
i think i can do is kick the world in the shin
& say, "i just want to feed my friends the clouds."
i like to hope though that we could
one day build a castle of cans. will they be
empty or filled? i am not sure.