Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Eggs

Don't fucking mention eggs
to me. If I hear one analogy
about baskets or hatching --

Here's the thing, about chickens.
Once they hatch, they are still just
baby chickens. They are walking
death-traps. How do any of them
ever survive? They are fuzzy balls
looking for something to crush them.

Why does anyone care about chickens
hatching, anyway?

I had an egg once. And as it grew
never once did
I count it as a chicken.

I watched it incubating.

Just stared at a single --
no... wait. Single
is a counting word --
just looked at a --
just watched the heated
box and its contents and

then
crack.

A beak, burst through
the flaky shell,
pawing about for
air.

Yes.

One chicken.

But as I stared,
the shell crumbled
away to show patches
of scale, and fangs
grinning
wide from a full-
lipped mouth.

The beak that I
had hopefully counted,
nothing more than
a quivering bone
spur -- stretching
and snapping from
my beast's elbow.

Good God --
what was
I waiting for?

No comments:

Post a Comment