Fried Eggs Holy
BY CLAUDIA CORTESE
I look on the sunnyside—
I’m fat but not so fat
no one will love me. I fit
into plane seats, my hair
smells of strawberries. I push the urge to kill
beneath my pillow, open my window—
see the green grass beneath a premature snowstorm
golden. I feel like a pine
whose body can’t bald or run,
who remembers each year as a ring
and nothing more. Like all good trees, I need water
and an egg. Poets lie. They say
The world is enough, say
Each day opens its palms of birdsong,
but most days I don’t give a shit
about birds. I watch sun
harden in the pan, eggspit
turn white as angels.