A crow, legend tells us,
took the poisoned loaf
the jealous subdeacon
had sent to Benedict
and flew it far from
the mouths of those
too hungry to question
so sudden a gift.
Pinched between its beak,
the holy cards imagine,
a Dark Age dinner roll,
a bitter bun marked with
an X and not a cross.
I wonder if that's right.
Surely, it was bigger
and cruder, a heavy
boule hauled, ash-bottomed,
from the stove's far back.
Surely, the crow struggled,
thrust back into inelegance,
wings against the draft.
The loaf, talon-clutched,
unsteady in its rising,
an ill omen over Perugia,
Another of our sins aloft
in that uneasy suspension:
forgiven, dispatched, released
but not yet departed.
