Wordle 89

standing in the bread line,
between men, crushed
against my father and my uncle,

waiting for them to hand out
the loaves of warm bread,
to deliver us from hunger,

my uncle, always on a tangent,
talking about the stars,
but they don’t bring me warmth

as they do him, flames
for his imagination
against the cold and ice

which is strewn about the world,
on us, this hungry brood,
so we tuck the warm bread

under our coats, to keep
it warm and us warm too,
until we get home to the women,

crossing over the frozen creek,
past the tourists who pop
bread into their mouths,

to my mother and my sister,
who know how to knead bread,
but I don’t know

the point of such knowledge
when we have no flour
and no flame to cook it

/ / /

This poem was written in response to Wordle 89 at The Sunday Whirl.