BREAD

All that long white winter of my illness
The loaves kept coming,
Not like store-bought loaves

Which a small fist can crumble
To a tight ball of dough,
But sturdy brown loaves with hard shells,

Their crests shaped like chefs' hats.
They fed my children, whom I could not.
They fed my husband, who made them.

They replaced me.

They were the color
Of the long fields of gold grain that grew
In that other country where we sometimes lived.

As I ate the bread,
I saw the wind sway the wheat,
I felt the breeze of health on my hot neck,

The loaves kept coming
Until one day, alone in the house,
I took a hammer to three of them,

And smashed the crusts,
Pounded the loaves into crumbs.
Then I cleaned up the evidence,

Took up the crumbs
And threw them into our wintry yard
For the few chilled grey birds.

All the nights of that long week,
My husband and I lay on the long white fields
Of our bed,

Doing our most ancient dance,
Amidst the birds' twitter, their high songs,
Their shuddering, ascending wings.