Sunday, November 29, 2015

Pompeii, 79 AD

A loaf of bread Italian style,
rounded, wedge sliced
by a practiced hand, found
intact.  One of eight left unsold,
brick-oven fresh and crusty
before Vesuvius scorched it,
wrapped it in volcanic ash
like the donkey out back
still in its traces, head tossed
in protest, nostrils flared,
no longer grinding wheat,
and the baker fleeing seaward.


Marilyn Aschoff Mellor


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