Erin Garstka

 

 

Hard Boiled Eggs

 

First drain the boiling water.

Float them in liquid cold and colder.

I crack shells against the pan’s rim,

think of my unused ovaries,

one blocked, one unblocked,

wonder if chicken came first.

 

Midday sun glazing countertops,

I dream of resurrection,

know that if I drop an egg,

it will roll, maybe shatter,

but its yolk, albumen

will remain contained, intact.

 

I remember his eyes,

their thinly disguised loathing,

afternoons spent in the pantry,

bread loaves that rose perfectly,

then collapsed

when removed from the oven.

 

I wonder how rapidly

cells divide

in my father’s bloodstream,

try to guess the point

to the exclamation

of a life.

 

Silly putty, panty hose,

trees with plastic shells

dangling from budding limbs

remind me of chicks

hatched under a hot light

in my third grade classroom.

 

I like to imagine nucleus

golden as a promise.

I like the weight and heft

of eggs in my hand.

I watch their white flesh quiver

when lifted away from broken skin.

 

Bits of shell washed clean,

they could be swallowed whole

or bitten in half.

Their chalky taste hints

at what is left in our wake,

what we must ingest.

Erin Garstka has poems published in Loyalhanna Review, Taproot Literaty Review and Mediphors. She helps lead the Monroeville Poets.

Beauty for Ashes Poetry Review ©1996-2001

©A Creative Ash Publication 2001

Isaiah 61:1-3

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