Bread And Jam Today Poem by Laura Harrison McBride

Winter is late. Freezing. Cold draughts limbo under front door,
roll up the stairs and zig around the banisters to
attack me in my studio. No, no
I will not buy fingerless gloves. I will turn on
a space heater. I will because
I am not Degas, this is not Paris, and
I have a meal ticket. A man who
supports my engaging the arts to do battle with
whatever demons make us
all of us arty folk
engage ourselves in repetitive futility.

The best do not repeat. The wealthy
do. The wealthy artists find
a gimmick, a gimcrack, and crack their
muse on its sharp, metallic edges
all the way to the bank. Schnabel pottery
on canvas..no, IN canvas, stuck through,
oh dear, and other
New York talentless...
well, I had better not go there. But...

No frozen, northern-lighted studio
for them; they can afford
heat, electric daylight. Models. Holiday
trips to exotic lands. I can
turn on the heat, thanks to my meal
ticket (dear man, my soul's bread and butter.)
I can labour at one-offs until I tire, and then
go downstairs, toss costly organic grounds
into the French press, stick a piece
of my favourite once-for-rich-folks-only
white bread into the toaster. Slather butter, spread
strawberry Bon Maman to my heart's content.

I used to bake brown bread, before the
meal ticket, drench it in
butter and honey still warm. A meal. In
the old days, the days when I couldn't
turn up the heat. No meal ticket. But
I wouldn't...no, never...
I wouldn't use a gimmick to
attract buyers.

I ate brown bread, honey, not much else, some days.
And was peaceful, happy, and full.