Diane Puterbaugh lives in Jackson, TN where she practices meditation and trains for marathons. Diane has completed a chapbook titled 31 and is working on another, Contrails. She often enjoys black coffee, bird watching, and a certain brown dog.

Toast With Jam

Toast with jam is bread with berries.
Browned bread with boiled berries
is toast with jam. Browned bread
with boiled berries is breakfast.
Bread toasted turns brown. Berries
boiled turn brilliant. Toasted brown bread
with brilliant boiled berries is breakfast.

The gold finch is green in the winter.
In the winter the gold finch is a green finch.
A gold finch that is a green finch
in the winter is eating thistle seed.
Thistle seed is breakfast for the gold finch
that is green. My husband asks why
the gold finch is green in the winter.
I say, “Eat your toast with jam.”