Joey Nicoletti: “Bread”

BREAD

My street cuts the sun

into thin slices.

I don’t remember living

anywhere else

besides the top floor

of this tiny house,

but my mother tells me

I used to sleep and dream

in her bedroom, before

she and my father got married

and moved to an apartment

with a great view

of the Throg’s Neck Bridge.

All of this happened

before I could speak,

before I said the moon was

a big, empty porcelain plate,

and the stars were crumbs

left over from Sunday dinner.

Since then, my father has taken

more shifts picking strangers up

and dropping them off

throughout the city. He has given up

smoking. He doesn’t drink

as much Schaefer, Piels, or Dewar’s

as he used to, which is why we have

more fresh semolina to eat, and almost

enough bread for a down payment

of a house that doesn’t have bars

on its windows. We’ll get there,

my mother says. Believe it.

Joey Nicoletti‘s latest books are Thundersnow (2017) and Capicola Slang (2109). He teaches creative writing at SUNY Buffalo State.