My own body has been trying to get me 

to understand, telegraphs dots and dashes, down, there -
clench of kegel, of sphincter: yes yes yes – Noooo. Noooo. Noooo. 
Yes yes yes – help, I swoon, help, I wander over to vomit, 
in the dark when I am as close to alone as one can be when no one 
leaves the house.  When you swallow something poisoned, poisoning,
gone bad, this is what will help: a purging, a surrender – 

I remember I was baking. Before or after or during.  I left the internet 
closed, in a room by itself to be silent, to think about what it had done 
while I measured sugar with a heavy hand – scoops rounded, unrepentant.

I followed, was following, will follow a recipe I have never bothered to write
down; the exact give of the dough is something you must feel - 
measurements shift around with the heat, the humidity, the origin of
any particular wheat, its age.  It rose beautifully.  I punched it back down. We
ate the whole loaf without taking out a knife, just put it on the table
reachable by everyone in the family, ripped it to chunks, to crumbs, still warm.
For all that extra sugar, it came out a little salty, just the way 
we like it. 

      Bless all the things that are brought forth 
from the earth, shuddering, stretched until we tear, until we tore, 
blessing, blessed, the shapes we formed as we fell.