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B. Lynne Zika is a poet, essayist, photographer, and fiction writer currently living in Los Angeles. Her books The Strange Case of Eddy Whitfield, The Longing, and Letters to Sappho: Putting Out the Fire are available on Amazon and through other booksellers. In addition to editing poetry and nonfiction, she worked as a closed-captioning editor for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. She has received awards in short fiction, poetry, and photography. Her father, Yewell C. Lybrand, Jr., was a writer himself. Before his death at 34, he bequeathed her this wisdom and mission in life: Make every word count. Ms. Zika is grateful for what the arts have added to her life and for the many gifts exhibited by her children and grandchildren, especially their good will toward others.

The Art of Eggs

The first thing is to open the coop.
Then from the storage shed, gather
scoops of feed and grit.
Scatter them across the ground
in the chicken yard, calling,
“Here, chick, chick, chick.”
While the hens and chicks peck and scratch,
slip into the coop, freshen the water,
lift the basket from the nail,
and gather the eggs. Unwashed,
farm eggs don’t need refrigeration.

Your thievery can be offset
and the flock replenished
if periodically a hen is allowed to brood.

She will settle herself over the eggs
you’ve let be—one, two, three,
and counting—and the warmth of her body
and the shells her body made
will incubate the chicks. One day
that first telltale crack will appear.

In the months, as a young woman,
my body housed children,
I did not once contemplate
what my purpose in life might be.

The painter lifts a brush and realizes herself.
The poet, a pen. The brooding hen
employs her body for the act of creation,
each contentedly lost in making
while others scratch and peck
and cluck over the importance of Me.

— B. Lynne Zika

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