Breaking Bread

A poem about love and loss

A family is created at the table from shared starches, meats, leafy greens — the efforts of heat and warmth turned into the basics of survival. Bread is a cascade of ingredients that becomes more than the sum of nourishment as we gather here with forks and knives and never-ending appetites.

At gatherings filled with cheer, we mourn deaths and the disappearance of people from our lives as age and long distances take their toll. Their names are not all that we’re losing. I also mourn bread broken, noodles eaten, dessert sliced into neat and even portions as we eat our way closer to goodbye.

If you enjoyed this poem, please feel free to check out my others here: