The Great Runway of Life

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     after Kay Sage’s “The Minutes”

Factually, I have never been lost.

When I can’t find where I am supposed to be,

I’m an egg on a journey

surveying the ledge,

sunny side up in the back

of a car, going where eggs go,

where oval shadows coalesce with

hungry, happy hands,

I’m hard

and boiled and swerving

through bodies trying to arrive at my promptly-

timed reservation. I’m a bad egg.

I’m late for dates.

I’m known to bring roses, though, bring lips

like a yoke,

thickly pressing hard,

dollop dropped in the throat.

On the great runway of life

I sizzle,

I crackle and pop, I gush

myself open and drip under the stage

where the orchestra plays. The poaching jokes

aren’t coming.

I don’t think I’m always the main character.

In so many of my dreams,

I die before I reach 30.

In 7 months, I am supposed to turn

that over-medium

age, runny side up, of 30. Like an egg

on a journey

I’m not ready to stop going.

I want to be late

for so many more dates, I want

my dreams to crackle,

like shells, fall to a compost bucket,

so stinky,

I ask, munching bugs, leave me here,

not eroding, not

shiny, but ready

to roll through the world.