Kirsten Jones Neff
Two Poems
In Search of Eggs
I leave my suburban home
and drive west
toward farmland
in search of eggs.
The road stretches
ahead, adorned with
wings of silver grass
shimmering,
infinite as ocean,
and my mind jumps,
skittish as a bird,
back and forth,
from this pure
certainty of spring,
to the grocer’s
metal shelves, barren
under hard fluorescent light,
tags and prices
dangling, aimlessly,
signage posted,
day after day:
NO EGGS.
But foothills rise,
as always,
as if in relief,
a majesty above meadows,
asking for trust
in my approach.
Just this week
the dishwasher broke
and then the microwave,
then the vacuum clogged,
and everyone in my home
was crying,
or angry.
The world is breaking.
The contagious frailty
I suspected
inside my self
is leaking out
through cracks,
and the imperfection
of living
is growing
louder and louder
as nurses and doctors plead,
begging us to listen.
They stand inside
moments of silence,
accompanying the dead
left so alone.
I focus on the line
in the road ahead.
All I want is an egg,
pale brown and smooth,
born of this silver land,
perfect and unbroken.
Coronavirus Diary: Days 1-31
On the 1st day,
I rushed to the store,
bought potatoes and leeks.
I made soup
and cried
fat salty tears,
right into the broth.
On the 4th day,
I washed the linens,
even the rags.
I tried to make them
bright and clean.
I ironed everything,
every last wrinkle,
and felt calm.
But when I lay down to sleep
I felt wrinkled
and uncomfortable.
On the 9th day,
I dug up weeds in my garden.
Angrily.
I killed the weeds
with my hand trowel,
stabbing them
over and over,
until I hurt my wrist.
On the 13th day,
I cleaned the oven.
It had never been cleaned.
I put my head in
to remind myself,
I am not
living alone
in a dark oven.
On the 18th day,
I looked up at the skylights.
They were dirty
and I couldn’t see out.
I got up on the roof
to clean them.
It felt important
to see clouds moving,
to know that orbit
is still a thing.
On the 23rd day,
I wrote a book.
It was a historical novel
about a person
who lived
without feelings,
no memory
of the past,
nor vision
for the future.
She had no desire.
There was no plot.
On the 31st day
I sat outside
on my front stoop
with my dog.
I caressed him
all day long.
Nothing else,
only touching his fur,
the softness of his fur,
feeling nothing,
nothing but love.
—Submitted on 04/26/2020
Kirsten Jones Neff is the author of When The House Is Quiet (Finishing Line Press, 2009). Her work has appeared in Believer Magazine, Stanford Magazine, Ms Magazine, Literary Mama, Spillway, and other magazines and journals. She sits on the board of the Marin Poetry Center.
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