Consequential Egg
By Rob A. Mackenzie
You prefer the murk of details to the vision complete,
incident to plot,
incidental to mainstream. You like books for hilarity
halfway down page 17,
oblivious to consequence. You don’t care who lived
happily ever after
or how a mystery is solved, and closure is important
only for the satisfaction
of completion. All this is why, on the number 12
heading for your ninth
birthday party, I eavesdrop on the conversation
behind us –
how a conceptual artist assembled a giant egg
from ten thousand
eggshell pieces – and imagine you building an egg
from splinters,
each selected according to your personal aesthetic,
fascinated by the fit
they make, the gaps and incongruities, building
patiently for weeks
until an egg the size of a bus wobbles on a tiny cup.
How does it end?
An ending would be a betrayal. Already you have
begun the next egg.
