A WOODEN DARNING EGG
by John Updike
The carpentered hen
unhinges her wings,
abandons her nest
of splinters, and sings.
The egg she has laid
is maple and hard
as a tenpenny nail
and smooth as a board.
The grain of the wood
embraces the shape
as brown feathers do
the rooster's round nape.
Pressured by pride,
her sandpapered throat
unwarps when she cries
Cross-cut! ka-ross-cut!
Beginning to brood
she tests with a level
the angle, sits down
and coos Bevel bevel.
From: The Capentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, Poems. By John Updike,
copyright 1958, Harper & Brothers Publishers, LC 58-6158
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