Once More Around the Block

Once More Around the Block

The truth is this morning

I don’t want to write.

There is bread to be made

not the living wage kind—

I’m retired—but bread

that melts butter under

the knife, drips down honey

on fingers you can’t lick clean.

The recipe is simple:

flour, brown sugar, yeast,

salt, oil in hot water.  Knead.

Let it rise.  Heat the oven

to 350 degrees. 

An hour later fresh loaves

steam on the cutting board.  

Slice thick and . . .

Man may not live by bread alone,

but he’ll starve if all he gets

is one more dead dog poem.

                              —Donnell Hunter

                                        20 January 2012