ManicDDaily

Egg Head?

Yesterday I posted a villanelle mistaking an egg for a light bulb.   I was thinking about that today on the subway and came up with this poem.  Perhaps, I should say, draft poem.   Any suggestions are most welcome.

An Egg is not a Light Bulb

An egg is not a light bulb.
An apple is not an orange.
A square peg does not fit
into a round hole.

Actually, an apple is a lot closer
to an orange or even
to a round hole
than an egg
to a light bulb.

Though an egg can
have a certain luminescence.
In a pitch black room, for example,
an egg would be better than nothing
(especially if hard-boiled).

Except that a hard-boiled egg
has a blank crustiness
about its shell, like rough
plaster, or better,
gesso stuck insistently
to what would otherwise be
a relenting stretch of raw canvas,
while an uncooked egg, be it white
or brown (truly a dim peach),
has the iridescence of a pearl,
a tear, a newly-hatched idea,
which is represented (typically)
by a light bulb hovering
just above, or even inside,
a human head.

So maybe, thinks the head,
this thing called life
is possible.