Hour 5

The time is, 2PM or, frankly, central time 12:00

My clock chimes on my laptop undisturbed

By my being.

I’m at brunch

With two delightful beings

Who would rather discuss the world

Than anything else

Be it, 2, or 12, or 9:00

In Tunisia they bake their bread in the sand

We would never

Something about zoning violations

Or even pettier

Just to avoid court letters

For 6, or 8, or any o’clock

Simple method though, this sand bread

Easy ingredients and large enough to fill

The mouths of many, so families

Can work and be healthy

And share bread at no demand of the clock

They skipped meals, I know they did

And they would send their kids to school without any bread

No, not the ones in Tunisia

The ones in Chicago

Pricey shoes but no food

And we could compare sand bread

Simple ingredients

But the same comparison still

No one would let you bake it here

No not here

And the families with kids who have shoes and no food

The system keeps it simple

Keeps it simple

Do one thing without the other and have the roof over your head

Let your child suffer a while and eventually you’ll all be fed

But just like sand bread

Those grains baked into the growing flour

Have to be beaten out

By knocks on doors and reality bruises

Something wonder bread kids live without

But do you know how many ingredients are in wonder bread?

The exact opposite of simple

And those kids spend the rest of their lives doing too much

Thinking they are getting ahead and exhausting every extreme

Never seeing the simple joys

Of flour, oil, and salt

A different sort of clock

The time it takes to bake the bread is the time it needs

No one lives within their means

And the systematic racism keeps the time from being

Anything but run down

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