An Egg-Like Poem
by David Fladger
Arizona State University
Hadley Bruno, a senior at The College of Charleston, is an Integrated Studies major. She hopes to make use of her areas of study, creative writing and studio art, to write and illustrate children's books after graduating in May of 2026. In her poems and short stories, she strives to show the world through her eyes to the reader, and bridge gaps in understanding.
After Mai Der Vang
What is the body of a dream,
But ink stained eggshell
Grip smothered
In your failed-god hands.
What could be its blood
But sterile yolk splattered
On your shirt, curdling
In spotlight after you held too hard.
What is the name
For incubating it dead—
This poem you refuse to name
Because you hate yourself,
It’s body of yolk and blood,
Broken in the moment of your clasping,
Still was born,
Still, with breath refused, sings bright bird songs:
More is possible in you
Than is impossible without you.
Let beloved
Be the name which names you.
But what is the name
Of dropping the dream?
An emptiness of hands,
An arrival to paradise starving.