Shape and Substance

~ after Diane Seuss ("Coda")


The best donut in a box of store-bought donuts
is not glazed but plain, like a plain-spoken poem. 

In the farmer's market, the best donut is the one
which doesn't smell like apple cider or pumpkin 

spice. It's the one that isn't dusted with sanding 
sugar or a cinnamon-cardamom mix. If it's sweet, 

its sweetness lingers like the space where a hole 
has been made in something that used to be 

whole. In other words, whole doesn't always mean 
unbroken, and broken doesn't always mean not good 

anymore or of no further use. Sometimes whole is a body 
that rose and was punched down once, twice, on the counter 

or in a bowl. Whole means strands of gluten broken 
down, souring in fermentation, then knit back together 

to form an elastic structure. Tap it with a knife or your
finger. It's crisp and golden outside, soft on the inside.