Here it is. The complete autobiography of Elaine and Rexroth, who after years of cohabitation and fights and hesitations and love decided it was worth the wait, in short. The baby might have been on its way around the end of spring if the timing were right and everything had gone well. It had, for the most part. Though long tucked away goodnight, the flow between them would wake every so often in the darkness of their home and swell for a moment of little premeditation, which was, they would say later, the seed of the tree that darkened their yard. It woke one night, spun its magic, and left. It took. Whatever was not there was, now, more than there. Whatever was wrong between them would be, now, perhaps, right. The idea was forward thinking. The possibility just hanged there, just beyond reach. A few weeks later, Elaine told the story about what had happened at work, where she spent most of her time lately, Rex would tell their friends. There was a fight. It was loud, but like most fights the thunder is not as loud as the lightning in the mind. Elaine stepped in, and one of the girls pushed her back and she fell over another and hit the ground hard. Something in her broke at that moment. And something in him broke when she told him about it. The blood. There was only a little. It could've been. It might have been. But they would never know, would they. And that's the part of the story that is the most special. The not knowing.
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Egg, Egg, or Eggshell by Forrest
All around us somewhere are people successful in breakfast. They know which eggs to use, what colors are concerning—which is also knowing who can see the desert, who can see it encroaching. You, otherwise, let an eggshell fall. The floor, the hint of turquoise, red rock embedded. From a small bird, smaller egg: from the desert. Large bird, larger yolk, but not a desert largeness. Like the patio where you drop the shells. You refuse cooking different eggs, larger yolks. Larger potentials. How long, I ask, does an egg from that bird incubate until the embryo first develops a nervous system? In the same time any desert grows larger; but this patio, it is smaller, even as it stays the same size. Trying this on you I like, yet the only tease of things as they grow large or small for our breakfast: an egg in turquoise, an egg in red rock, an eggshell a shade of white not mistaken for another bird.
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Shadow, Egg Shell, Shadow by Lyle
There is always a shadow upon my memory of that egg shell (I split the word to convey the inseparable uniqueness of egg and shell). Where it was eludes me as does so much else, but the three quarters of a shell. Had something come out of it? Some kind of reptilian bird perhaps that then lived its life out as primordial ooze? The shadow that is cast across this memory (all memories) is almost like heat igniting and obfuscating. I wonder, at some point, if it was I, perhaps, birthed cloacally, then by my own design pecking out the top into the blinding light. Though one preceded the other, does the order really matter? It does not. None of it matters now, cloaked in shadow as it is. As dark as an egg in the generative canal of a pigeon squatting in the recesses of window sill. More than shadow, shadow-memory.
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Eggs by Johanna
He had been in the dark for so long that when consciousness began, he barely noticed. It began (and would eventually end) as all thoughts do, with desire. The desire - to stretch, to move, to eat, to cry- prompted a crack in the delicate shell that bound him. He saw the first beams of light drift through the narrow shaft and he knew awe. He put his back into the business of birthing until his world broke open and burst bright. His mother eyed him curiously and he knew other. She brought him food and he knew hunger. She threw his egg remains from the nest and he knew time.
She found the shell shards on the soft grass beneath the tree and cradled their delicate blue film in her palm afraid of crushing them. At home, she placed them in a dish with rocks and feathers she had collected.
In the morning, before she rose from her soft cotton sheets, she listened to the birds chirp outside her window and prayed that today she would not break. Without dressing, she wandered outside, leaving behind a note that read: Gone shopping.
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Shell Count by Bill
Little lamb, they made the egg backwards, and put them out into space. Even the air wants to see us go. It pulls back from us, leaving the wind still while we wait in the heat. Tell me if gets to be too much, little lamb, tell me if you start feeling tired, faint, shaky. Tell me if you if you can see the sun, little lamb, or feel the dust blowing through your fingers. Better take the gun little lamb, because I can feel the trouble coming in from out of state.
