**Poetry: The girl breaks an egg

 

The girl breaks an egg

for E.G.

It is a cruel experiment, really- 

the high school health class 

annual egg-carrying challenge.

One cautious adolescent

has tucked hers in tight-

named the oval baby

Florence, and is singing

it to sleep.

The other is not so carefully

inclined. Her egg

stashed among notebooks 

and supplies

does not survive the bell-

shells and gooey glair

now coating the stairs.

In the real world

eggs outlive most tumbles

though some are indeed lost-

the frozen ones no longer viable,

the bloody aftermath of mucous and tears.

There is no counting on survival-

and certainly not without care.

This child fell two weeks in.

I recall

a moment of silence-

and the gasp of relief

as she let out a giant wail.

She will get through this too- 
cracked, perhaps, and a little sore-

not over-easy, just scrambled

at times-

as we all are
in becoming-
be it omelet or meringue-
transformed.