Who bakes the bread

we eat in dream?

Ransack Babylon for its stone answers

or glue your ear we used to say

to the purling of the Nile, high tide

in the synagogue, sleek wet tile

pressed to the swimmer’s flank,

shadow shredded by Venetian blinds,

castaway oyster shells, remember, remember?

You were coastal to, a coy beach.

a serenade too soon forgotten—

and yet it nourishes, it smiles;

your skin teaches you that,

the academy of do-not-touch,

showcase jewelry

stifled by bright light,

I suffer all the absences,

you endure the presences,

steam drifts from the oven

the bread is breathing,

get back to your sonata,

your census of bright things,

everything is for sale

if you can find

the right kind of money,

listen up, that soprano

is waiting at the altar

you woke beside this morning,

leave out the punctuation and decide,

music has a way of getting longer,

is the oven still on, check the flame,

you stoked your fire and called it light,

you smell the bread now,

what can it be that so intrigues

against the government of the mind,

in the ad soft song of nation state?

I hear her calling,

it must be true,

I hear her calling

is that loaf ready yet,

and what is dream

without a spoon

to gouge the soft stuff up

and swallow it,

even before the bread cools down

enough for the knife to know it,

and what is sleep without a knife?