Egg
By Brian Swann
We are in the position of defining myth by the shape of its absence.
-Sean Kane, Wisdom of the Mythtellers
The bluebird's cold mistimed egg
fetched up from the one-legged
box after the pair had left for
points south & unknown (never,
as it turned out, to return) I
renested in the half-geode by
the windowsill where it gleamed
&, months becoming years, seemed
about to last forever, grow more
consistent with itself, holding its pure
blue firmament up over what by now
was nothing, till one January day, snow
melting to a fast flood,
I blew it softly onto my palm so I could
hold its cerulean up against new sky,
home against home, where it lay
weightless & delicate as the Xmas ornament
we'd just put away, but when I went
to roll it gently back onto its bed,
& leave it there, I saw a thread,
a crack, another, watched it sink in
slowly on itself, shard on shard collapsing
from my touch & breath, relaxing
into the shape of its absence
Source: Poetry (December 1998)