LYDIA QUATTROCHI

Star Bread

Lydia Quattrochi | poetry

Clots of yeast droplets

awaken in warm water

just as the skirts of

black space

sprinkle the shyness

of stars.

Sharpened by rain

white as rice

swaying like so many

windy fields in summer—

I hunger to eat

the stars.

If I could

I would let the stars expand

beneath a soft towel in a bowl

knead the stars

with the fragile flour

of my fists

and bake for you

a loaf of

star bread.

I hunger

and there are so

few stars

to find my way

bellies still swell

and we still crawl

on the ground.

Had I the bread of stars

I would spread your table

with thick slices

butter and milk

we would stuff our cheeks

and empty the sky.

So high above us

the table of constellations

Andromeda still twirls

a baby bear beside

his dipper still smiles.

I will spread

my words in songs

on your table

and become my

own constellation

I will feast on

my endless

hunger and

longing.

L. Quattrochi, eighteen years old, is a lifelong homeschooler and has never spent one day in a public school classroom. She has struggled with feeling odd, weird, different, nerdy, and not belonging anywhere. Her favorite things to do are…basically just reading and writing poetry. For her, writing is a life vessel. Writing is a world of itself, not something she does in the world.