You can’t eat eggshells just like that, after the chicks and chefs are done. The bits might cut your throat and gut, and there’s salmonella to respect. But it’s easy to boil and grind them down, for the calcium as you age.
You can’t walk on eggshells just like that—they are liable to crack; you having such heft and wisdom, you would not know these eggs you lay, or knowing, care. Yet we who face the bake-off by day plead no harm to come amongst us.
So we walk on your eggshells just like that, tendons taut with tension, searing our nerves, broiling our hearts, grilling our souls, while you feast. And we mourn the bits left over, weeping curses with every spoonful.
writes poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. After a three-decade detour in public service, he resumed his lifelong interest in speculative, humour, and travel writing. His work has appeared in Harbor Review, Litbreak Magazine, Litro Magazine, London Grip, Meniscus, ONE ART, Orbis, Poetry Breakfast, The Prose Poem, Vita Poetica, and Witcraft, among others; and is forthcoming in The Stony Thursday Book. Ping Yi lives in Singapore with his spouse and their son.
