bread sonnets
by Rebecca Therese Klein
Poetry
I.
If I must be broken, let me break like bread
Releasing flavor, softness, feeding you.
If it must be spoken, then let it be said:
I have stopped fighting; I have cracked in two.
If I must be empty, leave the faintest taste
Of wine around my rim so I can know
That I once held the richness and the grace
Of love, before you couldn’t help but go.
Broken things aren’t always worse for breaking;
The breaking opens spaces for the light,
And, letting in the warmth to stop the shaking,
It’s possible the break will mend our sight.
I won’t deny I’m broken, but be warned:
I’m breaking into power, like a storm.
II.
I was the first, you cut your teeth on me.
You learned to crack the fragile shell of lust.
You learned that I could not be easily
Digested, for my bread has thicker crust.
I cut your gums, you bled, but found relief
In gnawing on my zwieback of a heart.
And when you finally grew your adult teeth,
You promptly broke my molecules apart.
For lust and bread, communion, are the same;
Devouring another to be saved.
But all our prayers can’t shield us from blame;
We break apart, bereft, humbled, depraved,
Swallowed into the belly of the beast.
Yet still I see us rising; love is yeast.
About the Author
Rebecca Therese Klein is a child and a lover of cities. She was born and raised in Detroit, spent her young-adulthood in New York, and then returned to Detroit. She is a writer and a middle-school teacher, and she strives to pass on her deep love of words to her students.