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They do not know what to do with the
egg because it has been turned into a real live egg. They approach
it with a willingness to nurture its great white head until it
becomes something else, a woman’s thigh or the eye’s
white. Everything was archaic. Exactly as the egg thought it would
be. The egg expected great things of itself. Like the Renaissance.
We did not care what the egg did as long as it was happy and safe.
The first time the egg spoke, it told the truth of eggs. “Why,
if you have been searching for me so long, do you doubt that I
am actually here?” We consoled the egg with our fingers,
proving that we knew of its existence, of its capacities to feel
the laying on of hands on an egg. “Why, if you have only
thought your hands were extensions of your thinking can you speak
and touch me at the same time without speaking only of how you
will and are touching me?”
I have made the ground swell with seeds that become whole orchards.
And in the swell came the goodness and fortitude of the people
who ate of these hands the apple they had imagined. I have lain
with your husband as you have, with my entire ear bent towards
his love for you, pronouncing the very breath in the shape of my
palms that he makes in saying your name. I have held that breath
in its opening, a lung flower, which maintains your senses and
your hope.
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