To start things off, how would you all
like to stand up for about a minute.
Would you care to do that?
OK, Major--
OK, I guess you're all--
you're good for at least another 20 minutes.
I'm going to start off with a most recent poem,
and there's no order to this except maybe
to length or something like that.
It's entitled "Bread."
Saturday night I stayed home, made bread,
kneading through its whole wheat brain,
listened to the neighbors walk along familiar dark ways.
I covered the bowl with a damp cloth
and moved into the shadows, unseen,
to watch my Victorian landlady pass.
She whispered in my direction as though some God Almighty secret
was alone in her position.
She almost tackled with it.
Little did she know, my bread was rising.