Guilt and Eggs Haibun by Karla Daly

Wrenched from moving Mom to assisted living, I fog-walk into my kitchen. A few stalwarts, missing. Removed. By whom, I don’t know. What kind of thief would snag my ragged cookbook, pages stained and brittle with broth, less sugar penciled by Spiced Cranberry Sauce? Who would filch the dishtowel my son gave me seven years ago that hung from the drawer pull under the sink? It’s true, the red faux-fur apron from our years in Arizona was a jewel in plain view. But really, why would the intruder steal the little whisk I reach for almost every day, of no value to anyone but me?

forgive me, mother,
i beg in the dawn, beating
two eggs with a fork

Karla Daly is a mid-life graduate of American University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Prose-Poem Project, and others, and she was co-winner of The Phillips Collection’s Lupertz Poetry Challenge. She lives in Washington, DC, where she works as an editor.