So Hen lays something
small and creamy perfect
as the sun’s slinging ellipse
certain as the shine of straw.
A Sistine hand collects, connects.
Sheltered by a green hedge,
Hen does not know the cosmic
supermarket stack of graded eggs –
free range, half range or barn –
does not know ballads
or builders breaking fields
or bald men cracking atoms.
She knows this egg,
this eye, this moon
and sea is the start
and stop of it all.