Perfect egg
by
Craig Kirchner
Poetry is nonsense
that happens
when I can’t stand
it, more to the point,
can’t stand up,
can’t stand the nothing going on,
sit down and put
words around it.
I used to have a
drink, two, with a joint
or a psychedelic, maybe
a quaalude
now AFib doesn’t
allow for such foolishness
I’ve
slowed the journey down with age.
Plump green beans
slow cooking in the stock
from a ham bone,
getting soft, soaking up
flavor, losing the
toughness and stringiness,
developing into
edible, to savor on the side.
A line walks in,
all belligerent and confident,
never says where
he’s from, just that he’s staying,
wants, needs
company, is seeking an ending,
thinks I can help,
especially with the middle.
We sit and talk,
he’s a shitty conversationalist,
keeps repeating
the same phrase. I check the beans.
He says he hates
beans, fulfillment isn’t slow-cooked
it needs to happen
right away, minutes not hours.
He has an
appetite, orders a fried egg, yolk for dunking,
edges just curling
with a tinge of color,
almost levitating
off the pan, perfect sun yellow,
white frame, says
he can’t eat it till it’s perfect.
Craig Kirchner
thinks of poetry as hobo art, loves storytelling
and the aesthetics of
the paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart,
and has a book
of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After
a writing hiatus he was
recently published in Decadent
Review, Wild Violet, Last
Leaves, Literary
Heist, Ariel Chart, Cape Magazine, Flora
Fiction, Young Ravens, Chiron
Review, Yellow Mama, Valiant Scribe and several
dozen other journals.
