Egg Shell Trust

George Hodan

Egg Shell Trust  

She

 trusted me to bring home the eggs

true, not a test with a very high standard

but a trial - in form of course

where I could put my eight-year-old  mug on the line and 

erase the dozen other tasks  I’d blown, 

like a stick in the wind of my older sapling-siblings.

She trusted me to bring home the eggs,

I walked each step pride poised as a high-wire guy

suspended between store and doorway until 

I reached the room where she lay, 

gray and trying for a smile against the white sheets, 

her breath wafted sweet as rotted apricots – 

waiting for me to unlid the box and reveal

those dozen eggs, gleaming, unscarred, perfect

in her egg-shell-shattered world, 

She gave me a thumbs up -

and for a mystic moment 

in a shivery shaft 

of setting sunlight

all was healed

again. 

~

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