Bread Sculpture- Grace Hartigan, by Sarah Wyman

Bread Sculpture, by Grace Hartigan (USA) 1977

Bread Sculpture Grace Hartigan
 
Back then, bread knew how to fill a pan,
rise past tin walls
where the only fear was too eager a vermilion bite
as though all those layered eyes might stop their smiling,
as though the smooth touch of each phallic finger stroking
bloated love might mix its cuticle
or gaze too easily into another’s pot.
 
The ‘70s sent tropical vegetation
as decoration, cozied in the floating
females caught up in bold prints
and chucked gently through red outlines,
wearing Marimekko smocks that pocketed wooden spoons
and the neighbor’s secret keys.
 
For those peeking over picket fences,
bread begs back to yeast when the baker can’t disentangle
the mythic beast who nibbles from the leaf that feeds.
In dreams, we travel a hibiscus ridge down the back
of a snake-like road we took only for fun
that time the sprig of a gift allowed one more gilded drive
to finish off the loaf.

Sarah Wyman

Sarah Wyman writes and teaches on verbal / visual intersections and lives in the Hudson Valley where climbing feet kick dust down to a river-sea.  Her work has appeared in Aaduna, Mudfish, Quarry, Petrichor Review, A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Poets of the Hudson Valley (Codhill), and other venues. Finishing Line Press published her chapbook Sighted Stones last year.