FAITH
Rosa Koire

When I was seventeen
I worked in a bakery
It was a popular bakery
People would line up
On the wet sidewalk to buy fresh bread
In the mornings.
They claimed they could smell it baking
All the way down the street.

My job
On those gray mornings
As they crowded politely around
The closed door of the bakery,
Waiting,
Was to open the glass cupboards,
Take out the day-old bread,
Remove it from the plastic bags,
Turn the bags inside out,
Wipe the condensation from the bags,
Return the bread to the bags,
Put the bread back in the cupboard,
And open the store.
I was seventeen.

The baker was a devout Mormon who told me
I should go to Israel because
If all the Jews were in Israel
The Messiah would come.
I offered to go
If he would pay.
He didn’t.

I did my job of offering day-old bread
To people who waited in line for
Fresh.
The faithful.
Couldn’t they tell?
I can’t remember what I thought about it, really,
In my hairnet and smock.

One morning
Early
Amid the incense of bread
A tiny woman, wearing a kerchief
Over a frizzled gray wig
Asked for a loaf.
I leaned over the counter to hand it to her, and
As she reached for it,
Her sleeve slipped back, and
On her arm I saw
Tattooed
Numbers.

I took the bread out of her hand
Went in the back
Got a fresh loaf
Bagged it up
And handed it to her
As the baker stood with his arms folded
Over his floury chest.
There was quite a crowd
Silently watching.

Then I got a marking pen
And wrote
On a big pink cake box
‘DAY-OLD BREAD’
I stuck the sign to the cupboard glass
With a piece of tape
Got a tray of fresh bread
From the back
Bagged it up
And sold it.
I felt like
Joan of Arc or
Jesus, even,
In my hairnet and
Smock.

I kept it up, but
He fired me
About six weeks later
For stealing
Brownies.

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