In an empty field I dream
of bread. Hunger’s not an axiom
for longing when the dim oven
of the stomach’s lain cool for weeks.
Sugar, salt, potatoes—gone—flour
nothing but memory. Each roll
I’ve eaten, I remember it
by heart and in vain. Winter’s game:
see if she can last just shy
of eternity. In the cold, I go to sleep
dreaming of Christ in the mountains
turning stones into golden loaves,
dream my fields full of heavy-headed grain.
The bitter rooms of winter fill themselves
with endless, wanting light. Come spring,
what’s left of me will leaven only grass.
–
Jory Mickelson’s first book, WILDERNESS//KINGDOM, is the inaugural winner of the Evergreen Award Tour from Floating Bridge Press and winner of the 2020 High Plains Book Award in Poetry. Their publications include Court Green, Painted Bride Quarterly, Jubilat, Sixth Finch, and The Rumpus. They live in the Pacific Northwest.