Jonathan B. Aibel

Alchemy

 
The toaster’s internal fire
takes morning bread,
scorches, not to ash –
the crumb remains

soft, sweet. Toasted
bread welcomes butter,
solid yellow to dandelion flow
in all crags and crevices.

Enchanted as blue sky,
in this moment I forget
my mother has died.

Jonathan B. Aibel is a recovering software engineer who lives in Concord, MA, homelands of the Nipmuc.  His poems have been published, or will soon appear, in Chautauqua, American Journal of Poetry, Lily Poetry Review, Ocean State Review, Pangyrus, and elsewhere.