Friday 24 October 2014

New poem: Bread



I opened up a packet of bread the other day,

took out a slice and as I put the butter on I

noticed that there was a hair in the bread. Not

on the slice. It was in the bread. It wasn’t

very long. I didn’t fancy eating it, so I put the

slice back in the packet and put the packet

in the bin. In the morning, I was looking around

for something to eat for breakfast, and I didn’t

have anything in, so I thought, ah, maybe I

could fish that loaf out of the bin, pull the

slice with the hair in it out of the packet and

maybe eat one of the other slices. So I got

it out the bin, opened up the packet and the slice

that had the hair in was on the top. Now

it had several hairs. I looked closely at it and

I could see that the hair was growing out of the

bread. This wasn’t mould. I know what that hairy

mould looks like. This was hair. It was a browny

colour with little blonde touches. I put it back in

the bin and went off to work. When I came back

from work, I got the packet out again and

sure enough, it had grown more hair. Now there

was enough hair to make it look like it was the top

of someone’s head. All growing out of one slice.

It even had a parting. Then, without knowing

why, I picked up this slice with the hair on it

and started to eat it. I was right about the hair.

It was hair. The bread had changed though. It

didn’t really taste like bread. More like something

made out of walnut. I ate it and pulled the hair out

of my mouth. It wasn’t really hairy. More furry than

hairy.