Sourdough and Calcium

It was just a piece of bread, toasted too hard,

a crust like a roof shingle. I bit down

and heard a sound like a dry branch snapping

in a woods I’ve never visited.

Then the graininess. A grit that wasn't flour.

I spat it into my palm—a small, jagged chip,

white as a bathroom tile, looking more like

a pebble from the driveway than a part of me.

I’m standing in the kitchen realizing I’m made

of things that break. My knees, my pride,

this molar. We’re just a collection of fragile gears

grinding until the teeth finally smooth out to nothing.