Egg Cellar
Four steps lead down from heat to coolness,
a worn door to the dim small room
where eggs brood on shelves lining the walls,
sorted by size and color, a date on each cusp.
Heavy earthenware bowls
hold the most extraordinary,
green ones, rare ones,
those big as preemies' heads.
Remember the Friday hen at home,
your little hand reaching its wet insides,
the pleasure of tiny naked yolks
you'd find, later delicately finish.
Candle one now against the window
run a thumb under its chin,
take an empty carton from the stack
place an egg in each concavity –
you've had your children,
the ones brought to light, the ones left
to darkness. You step again outside.
MAXINE SUSMAN teaches writing and literature at Caldwell College in NJ. Her work has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Earth’s Daughters, Potomac Review, US 1 Worksheets, Ekphrasis, and other journals and anthologies. Her chapbook Gogama (Sheltering Pines Press, 2006) takes place in Depression-era Northern Ontario. Born in New York City and raised in Mt. Vernon, NY, she is a long-time resident of Highland Park, NJ.
