The Spill

A child, five or six, still tonguing milk and greeting adults with a wet-lipped kiss.

In the yard, I found a robin’s egg still oval-shaped, in-tact and speckled blue. Cupping it

in my palms, I ran to mother, inhaling a cigarette on the front step and asked her to pleasetell me how to get this unborn child back to its nest, its mother would be breaking windows

when she realized her count was off, her litter of un-cracked shells was missing a breathing thing.

She huffed the tip of her Marlboro Red between her fingers, cracked her eyes in a tired way and said

A mother won’t want that once its fallen from her nest. A mother won’t take the spoiled thing back.

She spoke and I watched the ash fall from the end of her smoking- thing and my gaze caught too

little focus on the roll-able thing in my palm and it happened so fast, slipped onto the cement

and mother laughed at the splatter of shell and blood- tainted yolk. What’s done

is done. Go wash your hands. And I did what I was told.