We bake bread in new pans
guaranteed for a lifetime.
He shapes and turns while
I add more flour. We
knead together, each our own share.
Our strands, stiffening, strengthening, will,
in quiet warmth, rise. The joy
is in the waiting: the comforting anticipation
of certainty, the smell of a home
where care has a smell, the taste of time taken.
Let our bread not need butter to sate our deepening hunger.
Let it alone keep us strong until the last crumbs have been lifted to lips.