Noun: 1. The quality of being morally good or virtuous

I am good perhaps
some of the time.
I bake bread, now.
Call my mother.
She hates to be called,
and the bread, wheatless
and strange, sinks
in the oven’s heat:
a cratered salt pan,
barely half the height
at which it began.
The chemistry of goodness
does not ascribe
to the toddler righteousness
of my worn and weary heart.
There is always a less,
or a figuring.
The bones in the root
of my throat click
in protest as I lift
my chin to look
across this table once more,
my very body fighting
right up to the edge
again.

Photo by Monika Grabkowska on Unsplash.