No one else knows, as they eat the bread,
what’s been slipped into it,
how in with the flour, the yeast, the salt,
a stubborn devotion has slipped in.
It hides in an inner cupboard. Even the baker
doesn’t have the key. But when
she would rather not be loving—
because she is tired, because
she feels wronged, because she’s distracted—
that’s when the cupboard opens itself
and mixes into her the kind of devotion
that cannot be manufactured, the kind
of devotion that rises up not out of duty
but from some mysterious, infinite source
that guides her hands as they knead
the soft dough. It infuses her with a longing
to be big-hearted, a longing to love, even when love
feels unreasonable. She can smell it
as it fills the whole house with its generous
scent. Even now, as they sit and eat the bread,
it astonishes her, how ferocious
this drive to nourish, to love.
They pass the butter, the jam. She smiles
as they eat it together, slice after slice.
