THE EGG
What if loneliness
was an egg you kept
inside, in the hollow
between your belly
and your chest?
Could you imagine
yourself there
inside that egg,
in its embryo
cradled, held
but not knowing
you are?
What if you were
just there at rest,
at peace in a kind
of wakeful slumber,
being fed, nourished,
by the fluids flowing
into you and
all about you?
Wouldn’t you have
all you that needed there?
Can you imagine it as
a fertile place,
a place of not
knowing,
of growing,
of dreaming,
where the ways
of the world couldn’t
touch you?
What if loneliness
were like this?
Maybe we’d visit
more often and stay
a while, until
we felt ready
to return to the world,
ready to chip our way
through our safe
haven, ready to
begin again,
knowing nothing
of what had brought us
to the hollow
in the first place?
Wouldn’t we be like a new born,
like a thing with feathers
soon to remember
what it means to fly?
