" Albumin "
I think of an egg. A loon’s offering
tied to the center of my breasts
like the eye of a Cyclops. Always seeing,
always looking somewhere. It is this egg that I think of,
carried the summer I was ten
with ten thousand others buried deep
in the pockets of my ovaries, waiting.
Waiting like a child for a bird to fly out of her chest;
a gryphon, a phoenix or some other
magical beast. These are the things I remember; this
and the sour smell of my shirt
after possibility had died. How I drew
the needle across the center
and poked a hole, blew out the placenta
like the tongue of a lizard
and the clear line which held death.
I painted the white shell in blue, then red
drew small flowers, tied their stems
into intricate patterns, carefully,
in case I was wrong.
© 2003 Treezaa (T. E. Ballard)
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