The Egg

L says I’m brave but I don’t feel it.
I’m supposed to brew eggs and yet

I am the egg, cracked and unbound.
O my unkempt, grotesque yolk, sobbing

with foam. A bead of blood rolls down
the boiled curve of my distended middle,

a tear descending a starlet’s cheek. It’s too cold
for the birds that lightened my days this year,

crowding the feeder, pecking each other's heads
to make space, kept going by xylophone heartbeats.

Today it hurts to look at myself in the mirror.
My therapist is thrilled that I feel so emotional.

Let me know if you want to make another
appointment this week, she says.

Today we went very deep.
This time is a gift, don't you think?

Nicole Steinberg

Nicole Steinberg is the author of two full-length books of poetry: Glass Actress (Furniture Press Books, 2017) and Getting Lucky (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2013). Her chapbooks include Fat Dreams (Barrelhouse, 2018), Clever Little Gang, winner of the 4X4 Furniture Press Chapbook Award (2014), and two titles from dancing girl press: Undressing (2014) and Birds of Tokyo (2011). Her work has been featured or reviewed in the New York Times, Newsweek, Flavorwire, Bitch, and Hyperallergic, and she has participated in the Pennsylvania Center for the Book's Public Poetry Project poster series and the Guggenheim Museum’s stillspotting nyc project. She is the current Poet Laureate of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her family.

Previous
Previous

The Inheritance

Next
Next

The Mothers