Bread (a photo detail)

Bread_F, originally uploaded by Gary Means.

Breaking

 

 

Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap;

they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.

 

--Luke 12:24

 

 

   He sits, mornings

with his loaf of stale French.

               Blackbirds come,

 

      some prance the pavement

at his feet, some land

on his tattered cap

 

   and coat full of holes. 

The wind worries his holey coat

                  for warmth. He hums

 

   quietly and breaks

the rind, reaches the softer

flesh inside.  Birds dive,

 

   peck at his offering, quarrel

over crumbs in the gutter.

               Ravenous,

 

   some stab his open hands

and he holds them

open, knows someday

 

   he too will fly

when there’s no more bread.

Mornings he sits

 

   and feeds these birds.

In dreams

he goes to pieces.

 

--Ronda Broatch

First appeared on Poetry Midwest, pg. 18

http://staff.jccc.edu/schmeer/pm/pdfs/PM_17.pdf