The House of Bread

melanie rodriguez: Cuba

The House of Bread

"Enter the white shop: see the table covered with flour—white flour.

“Outside the town, the path barely twists towards the open air, and there
it is, the house of bread—the white shop.

“Where a black with a distant smile removes from the oven palettes of
crusty bread. He removes the palettes of crusty bread from the enormous,
quiet oven.

“How long have you been here?” you ask him, “how long have you spent
with flour?”

“He answers with ready jokes: since ceremonies and masks, since sails and
escapes, since tobacco bugs and machines, since circuses and flutes.

“Since they lit the fire in the oven.”

by Eliseo Diego, translated by Mark Weiss