University of Northern Iowa

The Bread Eaten in the DarkAuthor(s): Stephen JamisonSource: The North American Review, Vol. 260, No. 4 (Winter, 1975), p. 14Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25117712 .

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STEPHEN JAMISON

THE BREAD EATEN IN THE DARK

The sun gone,

I slept before dinner,

and rose

at last

to the meal finished,

the room dark.

With nothing to do, I dust the yellow bulb

as I did when a bellboy in the hotel lobby of Big Sur Lodge, small white tissue

papers in my pocket,

wearing my red bell jacket with name in gold,

sewn by Dolly the housekeeper,

and now in the dark

another life rises

at the new shade.

Only Aaron slept

in this room

when I was brought to Ward B.

Aaron brought for fainting and visions as I was,

sat when I wakened

talking to Jesus and

rubbing oil into his lame legs and the yellow light in his palms.

Now he gives the dust

in my pocket another name,

thin and dry like bread.

We rise to it

when the others eat,

we alone waken

to it above the pillow

when the room is dark,

bread saved from the pantry

held out in his palm and eaten in the dark.

Now in the dark I see

the bones of his legs shining,

rubbed in oil

the nurses give him,

and this bread I eat

is damp in my hands.

Aaron is at the window now,

the little light smooth

in his shaven scalp,

and he is talking to Jesus.

I will go now

to stoop a last time

to the fist of each yellow light,

glass flower, shallow hollow bulb

by the shadow of his hand, with a leaf of no meal when we waken,

this dark bread

we take by lights out

in the room.

14 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/WINTER 1975

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