I want to eat the world!

I'll start with clouds, those soft white cakes of air.
I've always thought they'd taste of Sunday morning:
of milk-warm light, of pillows after rest,
silver folded softly around a hundred feathered nests.

Then I'll take the sea.
I'll need a giant spoon, a napkin wide enough to borrow from the moon,
and someone to check my pocket, please before an octopus makes off with my keys.

Then the hills. The mountains sugared white,
the snowy, solemn peaks I'm saving for last.
I'll crack their ridges open and watch the startled goats ride frosting down their backs.
But why, I wonder, are certain things so peculiar to the tongue?

Some taste of rust and thunder.
Some are sour, sharp, and wrong.
Some sting like bees in hiding.
Some bruise, some crawl, some cling.
Some taste of old tin coins and bells
that have forgotten how to ring.

And still, and still, my stomach rumbles louder.
The more I taste, the more I ache
to taste what I have not.
I want the bitter and the sugared,
the spoiled and the sweet,
the splendid, strange, unfinished world.
I have yet to eat.

Ever and ever hungrier,
I want to gobble the wild world whole,
bowl by bowl by bowl.
And when I'm finally full, if full is what I'll be
I'll rise up from the table,
dust the crumbs from my knees,
and cook the world anew for other mouths to share.