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You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine.

— Jacques Crickillon

Tu es le pain et le couteau.
Le cristal et le vin.

Original text (French)

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Source, in full

Untitled poem, in Neuf Royaumes (1991) p. 80. Translated by Greg Bailey, in Frank: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing & Art, no. 15 (1996) p. 138. Quoted by Billy Collins as the epigraph to his poem "Litany", in Poetry (February 2002). Cited in Peter Armenti, "The Bread, the Knife, and the Source of Billy Collins's Poem 'Litany'", Library of Congress Blogs (November 13, 2018)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jacques Crickillon (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.