I
Among twenty soaring skyscrapers,
The only moving thing
Was the rising bagel.
II
I was of three stances
Like an easel
Which held the portrait of the bagel.
III
The bagel enclosed the hole.
It was like the eternal void.
IV
Who can find a good bagel?
It is precious.
The baker's heart trusts it completely,
It is his best reward.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The loneliness of love
Or the Loneliness of alone,
The bagel hot,
Or just after.
VI
Tic toc filled the quiet room
With measureless control.
The shadow of the bagel
Swayed to and fro.
The mood
Incessantly hypnotic.
Time to make the bagels.
VII
O thin slice of ham,
Why do you imagine bread?
Do you not see the bagel
Fills the hands
Of the women around you?
VIII
I know perfect shapes,
Symmetrical, and non-symmetrical forms.
But I know too,
That the bagel has trained me
To know too,
That the bagel has trained me
To know what I know.
IX
When the bagel is gone,
It marks the end
Of one of many baker's dozen.
X
At the sight of bagels
Browning on the decks,
Even the Gentiles of Council Bluffs
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Colorado
On a brown mare.
Once he almost died,
In that he mistook
the shadow of a diamondback
for a bagel.
XII
The sun is moving.
The bagels must be kettling.
XIII
It was morning all week.
It was snowing,
And it was going to snow.
The bagels sat
In the wire baskets.
©CopyrightDon Alvarez