Bread
Explore the way
it rises from
nothing, what
this teaches about
dignity. On the table
of furrowed wood,
knives coaxing butter
out of sleep.
I wonder how
my father thinks,
crumbs drying over
his mouth so he
never requires more
than what I have grown
used to confessing.
I trace the dough’s
burnt handwriting
with my tongue.
Jerrold Yam is a UCL law undergraduate and the author of Scattered Vertebrae (2013) and Chasing Curtained Suns (2012) . His poems have appeared in Antiphon, The New Poet, Third Coast and Washington Square Review. He is the youngest Singaporean to be nominated for the Pushcart Prize.