I slipped down from an oven of birth,
that desert of sperms and yolks
when all at once I saw of convoy of beings alike
oval and delicate in touch and in look,
from chickens and from ducks
packed in crates and into trucks,
white like zebras in a dim room,
thousands of me I saw at once
swerving bodies in rounds of applause
the farmers hurried in swift pulses
worry on both heads and
haste on four hands
I could not but wonder in a shortened awe
for I was like the rest carried off
with these unfriendly-familiar hands
in packs, they carried us as slaves in crates
seeing each other like rows of white corns
I waited patiently without sight of time
when the buyer would pick me for a dime
but out of haste their legs slipped a step
that flash, that second between life and death
wishing I could go back and change that step,
a cracked mate resignedly looked at me and said;
well! Life should be held like an egg,
not too tight and not too loose.
