It was this day, eight-nine years ago,
that Otto Frederick Rohwedder,
a jeweler from Davenport, Iowa,
got to see his invention in action—
yes, in Chillicothe, Missouri, a baker
used the bread slicer. Everyone said
it wouldn’t sell. Everyone said
the bread would go stale. Everyone
said the idea would fail. It’s compelling,
sometimes, what everyone says.
But sometimes, perhaps like Otto,
I hear the voice beneath the others.
It tells me to believe in improbable things.
Like poems changing the world.
Like Keatsian love. Like the immeasurable
pleasure that comes when the lever
goes down and all through the kitchen
floats the warm and earthy scent of toast,
the morning improving two slices at a time.