Bread
by Jennifer Hollie Bowles


I dug into the half-empty bread
bag, white crumbs with light
brown tops slightly stale—

I wanted the piece in front of
the last one, the slice I couldn't
see, the one that would taste
better than the rest, the one
worth martyring the other
pieces for,

but I couldn't reach it, not even
when I threw out the other pieces,

one
by
one

at first, and then in jealous fist-
fulls, but the bag never emptied,
never stopped filling with white
porous mounds of bread flesh
topped with little caramel heads,

until you caught me squeezing and
growling in frustration, when I knew
that I would never find the right slice.






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