An Artist Contemplates an Egg

You want to pick it up and coddle it,
this filled fragile case – warm its brittle shell
and gently rock the heft of its thick liquid
in your hands’ embrace – roll the ovoid slowly
forth and back with an assiduous affection –
delicately taking care that it won’t crack –

but what creature would you save? It’s not
fertilized, you’re not a hen or incubator,
you will beg no baby from that egg:
good luck eating it without destroying it –
boiled, scrambled or soufflé – destiny
requires its destitution every culinary way.

What to do then with this fine dimensional
ellipse – this rotund display – this idea made
almost manifest, absent longed-for embryo,
off-white unimaginable play? Sort of blows
your whole conundrum up, away: how to
foster, capture genesis – make it stay.

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