Needle, Egg, Chicken, Rabbit

The soul is hidden in the needle
that I pricked my finger with in second grade

the pact I made with a tawny-haired girl
whose face I can’t remember
still flows through my veins

Crack an egg over an open flame
the sizzle as the yolk meets cast iron

as the edges of the whites burn
as the rust seeps into breakfast, ruining
my appetite for the Most Important Meal of the day

Which came first, was it the chicken
or the hare that left a trail of destruction

in its fur-footed wake
my vegetable garden will never be the same

and neither will my mental health
the hunter-gatherer that I knew in my youth
is finally dusting the cobwebs off

The chest of drawers from my childhood
Stickers, 50 cents from the grocery store

peeling from its sides
the cocooned identity that I grew wings in

although I haven’t seen it in years
it got sold at a garage sale
or maybe I donated it to goodwill

when the capacity of my room collapsed
and the four walls caved in

I’d burn this
Home Is Where You Lay Your Head
to the ground
and spread the ashes over half the world

but in a hundred years
it’ll just reform again

Katrina Moravec is a poet with her heart split between two cities. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and recently spent a year in Dublin, Ireland getting her MA in creative writing. Katrina loves traveling and nature, themes that frequently appear in her work. She is a ghostwriter excited to start getting published under her own name.