Consider the Mother’s Mother’s Child Too

I don’t understand how this happens, why this happens, why the egg doesn’t refuse to leave, stays put, digs in its invisible feet, planted deep in flesh, the mother squawking, the sound piercing, the other chickens looking on, shuffling their feet, pecking at invisible enemies, their eyes twitching as the mother feels blood rush out of her veins, the pain a cloak to pain, the scramble for relief intoxicating, the egg caught in a stupor no one can rescue it from, the wind howling, swirling everything together, a hodgepodge of insanity and biological processes, merging to form this resistance to the other, each eating the other, a futile conflict where nothing wins, nothing brings resolution, nothing forces that egg into the world, a lesson potential parents must learn when their children say they had to choice in this decision, the love not enough to smother the pain the children feel about not wanting to live in a world they didn’t choose.

Christopher Stolle has many roles: partner, uncle, son, music aficionado, baseball enthusiast, and, occasionally, writer. His writing has been published by Indiana University Press, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Coaches Choice, “Roe River Review,” “Hawai’i Pacific Review,” “Sheila-Na-Gig,” “Tipton Poetry Journal,” and “Flying Island,” among many others. He lives in Richmond, Indiana.