Egg and Spoon Race

When I

first saw you, I was

pickled in your wide stare, your

eyes gouging at the back of my skull,

spooning everything away, like cooked egg-

white from the shell of my brain casing. My own

eyes spilled out like yolk, and you soon realised they

tasted good on the back of your spoon; you licked your

fingers clean of my residues, like slices of warm buttered

bread. But, being a romantic, a sucker for over-egging the

pudding and fussing like a cook over custard, I stuck around

and had you pick me clean, till I was no more than a scrunch

and a crunch of hollow glaucous sphere, egg-shaped in your

palm. You hated treading on egg-shells, you said. It felt like I

was about to break under your weight at any minute, so your

play went. Well stand on me, I said. You’ll see. Crack me on

 the edge of your spoon, swipe me with the knife. Poach me.

 I’ll make you my wife. I love you: don’t you see? You lay

me on the floor; centred me beneath your foot, and

adopted the crane, brooding hungrily like a bird

 over cuckolded eggs. But still I would not yield.

 You shifted on your heel, and still I never

 bailed. You said you never realised

 how much I’d been holding –

 how much the yoke of

you weighed.

                                                                                                           The water 

                                                                                                        was scolding and

                                                                                                            I was cooked. But you always 

                                                                                                    knew you had me hooked. Soon, we nested;
                               and now, I’m crested in the curve of your embrace, cool and metallic, but not out of 
                                 place. For you pickled me, devilled and devoured me, boiled me. Now you carry   
                                                                                                 me, as I once carried you. The steady race,  

                                                                                                         the steady hand. The finish 

                                                                                                          clear. The egg and 

                                                                                                            the spoon.