Originally published a million years ago in Calliope.
Read here.
Sunday I
Scrambled, basted, poached, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, fried, over-medium, over-easy, sunny-side-up. Drowning in butter, swimming in grease.
Eat your egg, Deena.
Sundays after Church, Mother makes eggs. Called Brunch, no matter how they are cooked. But, eggs. Eggs! Deena hates every one.
At the dining room table, Deena sits in her chair. She perches at the edge of the plump purple seat cushion and dangles her feet. Deena’s parents face each other from opposite ends of the table, Mother to Deena’s left, Father to her right. If Deena’s parents lifted their heads, they’d look directly into each other’s eyes, but they keep their chins down, admiring their Brunch. Mother smells of toothpaste and talc; Father of something bitter and sharp. Fork in hand, Deena studies the cornflowers climbing the wallpaper behind Father’s head. The petals are huge, very round, and bluer even than Father’s light eyes; but the leaves are spiked like weeds, and the stems look funny to Denna, too skinny, too frail. She keeps expecting the flowerheads to tumble from the walls to the floor. Deena sets her fork down and stares straight ahead, through the large picture window. The pine tree in the yard is weighted with snow. Its branches scrape against the glass and block the view of the sea. Mother wants to cut down the tree, but Father says No.
Eat your egg, Deena.
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