The bread is gone.
Even its scent
has left the boxcar.
I hold my last piece in my mouth.
I try to make it last forever
or at least until my memory can make the journey
to our lives before the wolves.
My mother is baking bread,
and Bella, who is supposed to be helping,
twirls in her apron like she is a princess.
My brother, Saul, is just a boy,
not a boy wanting to be a man.
He tells me a joke and then
plays checkers with me and lets me win.
I am home.
We have nothing and it is everything,
I can hear my father saying
prayers and it is like music.
Like the bread in my mouth,
the memory is sweet.
It tastes so good and before I can stop myself,
I swallow.
The bread and the memory sink to my stomach
like an anchor.