Bread

Yesterday, or it might be the day before because it cannot be the day after, can it now,

even to someone whose days seep into each other like gauzy colours of aquarelle,

a fellow writer mentioned me amongst those she named Female Poets — a kind gesture for which I thank her very much, 

but what neither she nor I could have known was the stirring of the fears as old as my memory of them,

for poetry, you see, is what I fear the most; 

those mysterious lines that speak in their own language, 
words and signs arranged in some secret and sacred order, 

in the wee hours of ill-doings;

bet-wings, skull-bones and black feathers tossed on a moat,
to fall as they will,
next to murky river pebbles and cygnets whose feathers have turned white, 

omens by the cottage lane; 

where you sift and you sift the dark, coarse flour,
until the white powdery clouds settle on your arms,
the fine hairs by your elbows,
and you pour water and salt into a small nest you circeled in the middle,
and kneed the holy mess into a bread, 
that loaf of sustenance,
thick and doughy, 
golden and crusty;

for you know that bread is good, 
very good for everyone.