San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Ron Vazzano

TOAST

Released from the silent red engine
of throbbing grid and wire—
a browning mechanism if you will—

the transformation of body to soul
of earth to fire
pops up perfectly done!

On this New Year’s day when time
has once again played its slight of hand—
setting heads to shaking in that template of wonder
“Where did the past year go?” —

there is the warmth and comfort
that only toast can bring.

With its subtle scheme of heat in balance
and distribution

with its staff of life and woodsy aroma
inviting hibernation

with its kindest of cuts—
two Pythagorean theorems—

and atop played out
the slow disappearing act of the butter…

I may have been as young as nine
toying with a slice at the kitchen table
when I had the first taste of the curious notion

that life is about moments
taken in half-moon bites.