Sourdough

Originally published in Ever Eden Literary Journal Summer 2019.

There is leaven in her quiet house,
on surfaces in need of dusting.  She
knows well to wait.  It is nothing she
can add to make the meal and water grow.
What spirit blesses the bread she doesn’t know,
but it blows life within the hollow crust.
Heavy, she pats the rounding of her belly
and hides the leaven in three measures, one
for him within her growing, one for the father
she has not seen, and one for faith, the yeast
of knowing things unseen and yet believed.