Eat the Bread

Tom and T.T. smoke. Peter
walks with a cane and nods
agreement to everything.
He says "God bless you"
to people he doesn't know.
Jay brought a blind man.
We only knew he was blind
because he pinched Jay's shirt
and walked right behind him
through the maze of tables.
T.T. is the mother who shepherds
them all through the door.

At first, we washed our hands
right when we came home.
But after we learned names,
we stopped thinking so much
about germs. We considered
job interviews and résumés,
bus tickets, stories, shelters,
and looked forward to good news.
We took their hands gladly because
"they" had become "us." We are one
body, and all partake of the one bread.