the millstone turns heavy
powered by blood
torrents of thick red
jam coagulating where it pools
and there’s no grist to grind
only chaff left
from the threshing floor
but grind it does
the wheel grinds
it is all it knows how to do
and so it turns and grinds
we bake our bread
with rough husk flour
we bake our poor loaves
black on the coals
of our ancestors’ bones
bitter is the crust
with no spot of fat
to grease the pitted stone
that is our only sustenance
and nothing to wash it
down but overflowing glasses of
gall bitter from our own hands
this is our bread
our communion
Words and Feathers 