Poem for Easter Sunday

Riding

It is noon on the Tube.

Schoolchildren squirm
in seats across from me
Cartonned like eggs
but warm, alive, awake:
Unhatched
Their smooth curving faces uncracked
by the angularity of adulthood.

In the speeding car
rhythms rise to my feet
Irregular clatter that finds a beat
a brusque pulse
a marching meter that snaps
like a snare drum, rappitty-tap.

I watch those children in their uniforms
of wonder and wide eyes;
The tracks rattle--fast, fast--
I am afraid.
They will break.
Scrambled eggs.

Not like the eggs I ate
breakfasting in Britain
Brown and boiled. Nested
in a solid hollow--
a well-cut gem on a porcelain plate.

The oval egg becomes a face
I put down my spoon.
The car comes to rest.
Doors open (shells broken)
The kid chicks holding hands
deny growing up.

(1997)