MALT WHISKEY - Shaya Block

I propose a new god

A 40 oz god,

And I wish I knew how to bake bread

Maybe they would teach me.

I could see myself with my vulnerable hand

Dipping it into the levain

Starter, birthed from the mother.

A kernel of rebirth -

Hooking the links

Between chains

Of gluten, stucco-bonded

Endosperm particles smeared firm,

And set to crust.

And Unscrewed from the brown lamp -

Reborn

from the germ of the too-old seed.

Pinching the conveyer-fed bread,

Trying to find the perfect body -

Not too hard, definitely not too soft -

I don’t want bread that doesn’t crack

At the whim of my thumb and forefinger.

I want to sin

To bake into the body

The perfect crispy christness

Break open the sternum

into three steaming hot loaves

That can never love you back

Quite as much as your love for them

Demands from you.

The yeast is too expensive anyway,

So let’s get back to that god.

Wait

Until the seedling pushes forth

Its first shoot, sprouting,

penetrating the husk.

All liquored and fed

Off the old god’s body,

Sopping the stomach

With stale bread,

And letting loose the endosperm

Onto the world’s back.

Push your head

into our fresh air:

Past the bran and down the bottle-neck.

Scrape down

The bowlside-stucco

with a flat-scraper

The paste sticking my hands

To stop me from sinning

With the perfectly-toned

rock-hard body of christ