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)
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)
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