Monday, July 8, 2013

Of Bread

artwork: ralph murre


Of Bread
by Jean Feraca

It doesn’t matter that the house isn’t locked.
Without you, it’s empty as an oven
of its loaves

I want neither your ham nor your cheese
nor your oysters and white
wine

I want the yeast of you, making me rise
til I split, two halves
in your teeth

and the butter melting, the hot bran
your yam-yellow light spilling
your honey seeping all through the comb

Not this house with its darkening oak.
Not that table laid with its cold
plates.



~ previously published in Wisconsin Poetry, Transactions