This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from my lost womb still sings to me by Jane Ayres (Porkbelly Press 2023).
eggs
when breaking an egg
the shell fractures in my hand
scattering brown flints into the yolk
I chase them round the bowl with a teaspoon
scooping out the debris
I usually miss a bit
fragile & strong
eggs are clever beasts
when we were children
you cooked us chucky eggs
couldn’t stomach them yourself
yet you lovingly cut fingers of white bread
thickly buttered soldiers
to dip in the soft yellow
& push forcefully into the runny yolk
until it rose up over the lip
& dribbled away
childhood fragments
leaving sticky mess
when I look in the mirror
I see your face
me become you become me
splinters of maternal love jagged beneath my skin
the comfort & fear of inevitability
the future foreshadowed
no more eggs for me
UK-based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres rediscovered poetry studying for a part-time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize and in 2021, she was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and a winner of the Laurence Sterne Prize. Her first collection edible was published by Beir Bua Press (July 2022). Her micro-chapbook my lost womb still sings to me was published by Porkbelly Press in October 2023. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications and can be heard on Eat the Storms, Upload, Blue Door to the Cosmos, O Bhéal and Medway River Lit.
Layla Lenhardt is the author of the full-length poetry collection Mother Tongue (Main Street Rag 2023). She is an alumna of the Firefly Farms Residency and a member of the Sundress Reader Board. She is currently working on her second full length poetry collection Little Spoon, and she is an MFA candidate at IU.
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