The Price of Eggs

We are grown before we are born
our legs strengthened to run
errands. Do you feel the squeeze
on the morning train? The thin membrane
forming? In each of us is a chick
thrashing and screaming against a shell.

Birds on a Wire

I had a dream that my feet were swaddled
in white cloth bound by that plastic wire
used to hang chickens when they are pulled
from the coop Here virtue is a head bowed
to receive bread I prayed to gloved hands
rubbed palms for men  lit by doorways
Their routine our ritual A machine’s hum
that echoed within our cages like a hymn
it rang out

  O’ devout ones, please forsake your feathers!
  O’ pious ones, please offer your eggs!
  You will hunger no longer,
  There is a place for you.
  There is a place for you.

We didn’t know the cost of saying yes
was to stuff our lungs with Zoom meeting
chants to birth from our breasts chicks
that would hatch in board rooms where doors
slam shut Plead on our knees for the duds
dutifully discarded as slops to fill
our buckets with something more than words

We have forgotten how to kick our feet
to beat our wings
we do not question whether this dream
is ours.