est. 2022

ISSUE 2: ADAGIO

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LYDIA QUATTROCHI

issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii issue ii
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.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THE DIPITY LITERARY MAGAZINE
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.