Chant for a Fried Egg

When your words cracked
My brittle eggshell heart,
Tucked at the bottom of my
grocery store-paper bag ribcage,
It began to ooze
Under the pressure
And seep into everything.

What could I do -
My broken eggshell heart -
But reach into my paper bag chest
and fish it out?
And hold it,
(A Protean task)
trying not to let it
Slip through my fingers.

What could I do
But toss it into the frying pan?
How could I ever allow
Such life, such nourishment
To go to waste?

So here -
Take my fried egg heart
And make a meal of it.
Stab the yellow center
And let it run
over the edge of the plate
Where you can lap it up.
Pour coarse salt into that wound.
May it mask the crunch of
broken shell, the bits I could not remove.
I hope it tastes like triumph.

Because the truth is,
I could feed a thousand of you
With a million eggy hearts,
Stocked by the dozen in neat little cartons.

I am a renewable resource.

But you,
With your foxlike smile
traipsing uninvited into my pantry -
You with your skin taut over bone…
Well, who am I to refuse the starved?

How should I tell you that all you had to do was ask?
And that it doesn’t hurt to give away for free
What you have in abundance.

Now you may think me the poorer one,
With my fragile raw egg hearts.
But while you go and hunt your next meal,
To consume and consume and consume,
Yoked to hunger and lack and need,
My diet remains balanced.
And I will look for someone
Worthier to feed.