The perfection of the egg is to break just so
Otherwise, a rotting comes slo mo
Over its potential and its peepers
Which we can weep over, jeepers creepers.
For humans, for chickens, for sharks in the sea
All eggs must crack for future eggs to be.
Yet this is not how my eggs were broken
For breakfast in Decatur when I was a girl.
It was Leila, who with a firm abortionist’s tap
Could break egg and spill without the sap
Of the yolk being broke – it went into the bowl
Clean and without fragments of the shell
Which was always my awkwardness when I tried
Not that I was planning on cooking fried
Or scrambly, or making a cake.
I just wanted an egg to break.
Leila’s job was as important as any other
Said no less an authority than my mother
(Mama was not like some of her friends
Who treated the help as means and not ends).
O Leila, from the bosom of your God above
Still my shaking morning fingers, and let me love
At least enough not to spill the vodka or tabasco
And in this magic potion spill the egg just so.
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