Over Easy

Aug 6 2012

The egg

is egg-shaped.

Like a roly-poly toy

righting itself

on its fat rockered bottom.

But toppling, wobbles,

rolls on its side

off-centre,

gyroscope yolk

resisting momentum.

I buy brown eggs.

White remind me of  Wonder Bread  — 

too uniform,

bleached, and sexless.

While each brown egg

is stubbornly eccentric,

from tanned, taupe, beige

to tawny, fawn, fulvous.

But cracks the same.

The plop of yoke
swimming in its bowl.

The viscous drip
dangling from its shell.

They come in 12’s

in a cozy padded crate,

to a random fate

of boiled, scrambled, fried
over easy
soufflé.

Or sunny-side up.

Who's unflinching yellow eye

returns my gaze.

Poems like this are my favourites:  the smaller and more everyday the subject, the better. I like microcosm. I like to find poetry in the unexpected and the taken for granted. There is a lot of power in this idea of being in the moment, of being mindfully observant. There is nothing pretentious or philosophical or politically provocative here. It's much more about word play and fun, about tightness and technique, about misdirection and the amusing twist. 

The opening might seem silly and self-evident. But I find it not only whimsically appealing, but quite wise, in its own way. We always describe by simile and metaphor -- the "kidney-shaped" pool, or whatever; but really, there is nothing in the world like an egg ...except itself! I like this self-referential metaphysical circularity. It's such an obvious statement it doesn't need saying; but on the other hand, there is a kind of gravitas to such an utter and existential truth.

Allow me to pre-emptively apologize for "fulvous". I resorted to the dreaded thesaurus, and couldn't resist a word like that:  not only completely new to me, but with such a lovely sound and mouth-feel. Not to mention that I'm a total sucker for alliteration. 

I prefer scrambled, stirred up into a froth with way too much milk, then poured onto high heat. Are scrambled eggs the equivalent of vanilla ice cream? Safe and unimaginative. OK, then; let's make it over easy. (Anything but that glistening yolk staring back at me!)