I boil an egg.

The kitchen smells of egg

well, it’s not a kitchen really

          a cooker

          on a shelf

          under a window

          in a hut

          in a garden

          in a village

          in a park

quaint and lovely as those painted eggs we used to get

nested within each other

egg

in egg

in egg

making me the foil-wrapped chocolate at the core

I s’pose.

I can smell the cracked egg as

the poured-away eggwater drains

down the unplumbed sink to

meet the rain-soaked earth.

I can smell the egg’s orange yoke when

I slide away its brown shell.

I tell them I can’t cook.

I lie.

I can boil an egg;

does not the aroma of egg waft when

the door is left open?

I can smell the egg.

I just can’t taste.

You took a couple of my senses with you when you left—

I shoulda checked your pockets,

it’s not like you needed them—

I like to think you kept them

to remember me.