Bread of Days
 
One hand withdraws a single slice
from the brown plastic wrapping.
She knew the brand as blue, for two.
Out of a vacuum and into the air,
it is spread with a thin sunshine
scraped together to seal up
the tiny punctures in a sensitivity
struggling to hold everything inside.
 
When hands chose two from blue,
a unity filled the space in between
with that sunshine and something more.
Such were the times tasted from life,
remembered now when one equals nothing.
Nothing shared. Nothing to bind together.
It’s a pseudo sandwich. A canapé.
A toast of salt to the flavour of lost laughter.
 
Through thick and thin, each slice
is eaten with the space around it.
The staff of life. The stuff of loss.
The wrinkled plastic full of crumbs
shed by the bread of days.

Susan Wilson


If you have any thoughts about this poem,   Susan Wilson would like to hear them