Baking of Flat Cakes
Bartolome Esteban Murillo
Bartolome Esteban Murillo
Bread of Affliction
Angelina de Leon, Spain, 1503
In haste, I roll and prick coarse rounds to bake
unleavened, like the bland white wafers placed
upon my tongue in the chapel where I kneel,
as we conversos must to live here in Leon.
These flat breads are made in haste,
in memory of the flight—and to evade
Maria’s glance as she carts in wood or lights
our fire. For zealous eyes are everywhere,
and our common foods—a simple stew
with mint or chard, or the green-gold oil
we’ve pressed since desert times—betray us.
A servant’s word, a neighbor’s whiff of saffron
or cilantro, is all it takes to bring us in.
In Aragon, the king’s own minister was seized
for eating chickpeas at his Friday meal.
He went into the fire. So why, for this dry
bread, will I, Angelina, risk the flames,
when so easily I bend my knee,
and have each child sprinkled at the font?
I only know the smell of egg and honey comforts me.
It was my mother’s and her mother’s way.
Angelina de Leon, Spain, 1503
In haste, I roll and prick coarse rounds to bake
unleavened, like the bland white wafers placed
upon my tongue in the chapel where I kneel,
as we conversos must to live here in Leon.
These flat breads are made in haste,
in memory of the flight—and to evade
Maria’s glance as she carts in wood or lights
our fire. For zealous eyes are everywhere,
and our common foods—a simple stew
with mint or chard, or the green-gold oil
we’ve pressed since desert times—betray us.
A servant’s word, a neighbor’s whiff of saffron
or cilantro, is all it takes to bring us in.
In Aragon, the king’s own minister was seized
for eating chickpeas at his Friday meal.
He went into the fire. So why, for this dry
bread, will I, Angelina, risk the flames,
when so easily I bend my knee,
and have each child sprinkled at the font?
I only know the smell of egg and honey comforts me.
It was my mother’s and her mother’s way.