Yeast

IMG_3531_u.JPG by creativosinlimites

Each morning from the dim secrecy
of the school kitchen, that single scent
sweetens the day—rectangles already baking,
legions of bread on long silver trays.
Like history, it won’t stop happening.
Bread spreading its succulent flesh
whatever we learn or unlearn
in the room with faded snapping maps.

Once the map flipped up so hard
Greenland caught me on the jaw
and I had to go to the health room.

Lying on the small cot,
closing my eyes under the ice bag,
I could smell the bread better from there.

Sometimes it seemed so obvious.
I should have been a slab of butter,
the knife that cuts, the door
to the oven.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye