Glenn G. Coats

Hunger

My parents do not speak of God, and will not attend a house of prayer. There is a Bible on the bookshelf, granted to my father after seven years of perfect Sunday school attendance. He tells me that he used some of his offering money to buy cigarettes. There is a story about my mother’s father, how as a young soldier, he was captured and chained near a church; and the local priest turned his back on him. My grandfather did not allow his children to attend the Lord’s house. My parents don’t tell me what to believe.

The Harris family lives down the hill. They have lots of children and a grandfather who resides with them. Their kitchen is always busy and clothes are always drying on lines down in the basement. When the grandfather (Pop) takes the boys fishing—he always has room in his big blue car for me.

Mrs. Harris invites me to go to the Methodist Church with her family. I wear my best school clothes. Music is playing as we walk through the doorway. People nod and there are whispers of hello. The service begins when the music stops. At one point, Reverend Henderson calls the children up front for a story. I do not move. The story is about five loaves of bread and two fish; and how they fed 5,000. There are songs and prayers, Bibles open and close, and baskets filled with coins. Mr. and Mrs. Harris are holding one hymn book and I can hear them singing. I wait for my voice to rise.

edge of a field
trains rattle the scent
of a river

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About the Author

Glenn G. Coats lives with his wife, Joani, in Carolina Shores, North Carolina. His books include two Snapshot Press collections of haibun, A Synonym for Gone (2021) and Degrees of Acquaintance (2019); Furrows of Snow (Turtle Light Press, 2019), an honorable mention winner in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards; and Another Lost Boat (Pineola Publishing, 2022).

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