Brown Bread

for my mother

Yesterday I baked the only bread you taught me how to bake.

One hand mixing the oats, bran and flour

the other adding in the cold buttermilk

I kneed

I kneed

I need to bring you back somehow.

I have broken the promise that I made to you

and have forgotten what you look like,

what you sound like,

the way you smell.

I bake this bread.

I break this bread.

I butter this bread

I commune with no one.

I doubled the recipe

I toast the bread and still I cannot find you.

I will keep baking this bread

loaf after loaf.