Tiger bread, Tiger bread burning bright
On a suntan bed of the oven’s red light,
The dough rises in a big round tangerine eye
And next to him, in a tin, is a bagel sweltering

In the yeast of his youth. A baguette
Lords it over them with his physique,
All bread and bones with an appetite
For the romance of the oven’s welding rings.

Grant Tarbard is internationally published. His collection As I Was Pulled Under the Earth, published by Lapwing Publications, is available now.