The Egg on the Subway

Friday morning

A Mixmaster of a

 New York subway car ride

Where I sit

Dressed in the formal suit of  sadness

My reflection looks like it could say

”Hello, my name is Johnny Cash.”

Sitting across from me

Is a woman

Not old

Not young

Peeling a

Hardboiled 

egg

With the 

Confident hand 

of a

Mt. Sinai surgeon

Who specializes in

In the field of

Microscopic shell removal

And

I am

Spellbound 

by the

Jiggly 

near naked 

ovoid

Which, like me,

Simply does not belong here

Especially

In these clothes

Which is 

The official uniform

Required

To stare at the 

Casket shell

Of my cousin

A one time egg

Himself, 

Now gone, whose

Memory, like any other

Will always be as close

As the station

That we just left.

Other passengers 

Are fixated too

Drawn to the procedure

Like a group of 

White-coated interns

Sitting in the bleachers 

Of a

Surgical theater.

Just as our unsterilized  MASH unit

Reaches

The station

Dr. Egg finishes with a flourish

And stands

In post-op. triumph,

Invisible nurses dab her brow

And she takes a cautious

tender

nibble

Like she’s nuzzling

A newborn 

and

Suddenly our eyes lock

And we communicate  in the sacred language

Of the connected retinas.

I transmit my heartfelt congratulations

Which she receives with 

The grin of the naughty schoolgirl

Caught.

And then

The doors 

bang open 

And
She joins the working class

stampede.

And I 

Step onto

The magic carpet ride 

Of death

Which has arrived,

Like the grim, double-parked hearse

Which  sits in front of the chapel,

to take me away.