On Letting Go

Heat lamps and cardboard cartons.
Sitting alone in a styrofoam crate.
I gave this egg to a blacksmith’s anvil
When fragile things are built to break.

Golden yoke and liquid white.
Masked foxes with chickens in the slaughteryard night.
There’s a rush of blood to the roost
And flightless birds headless in fright.

To boiling water I gave an egg,
Where in breathy bubbles it learned to beg.
Anger and resentment hardened,
Sparks fly, and the hammer shatters.
The bellows groans, the master moans,
And the egg moves on to kinder matters.