Ain’t here yet, but
S’gonna be Easter,
That season of vinegar,
Of Paas egg kits
Now full of things like
Glitter glue and beads and
Twirly tops, whatever they are and
Foil things and
Punchout things
But when Ah was liddle it was jest aiggs
Jes’ hardboiled aigs on the kitchen
tay-ble
With my brother in his worst shirt
And me in one of his worst shirts
Because I always dressed like him
anyway
My mother wouldn’t spend the money
And didn’t notice
Ya dip the aig in, see, like
This sort of, and it comes out
All bright and sparkly and
Half this color and half that color
and
Vinegar water with color in goes all
over the table.
The thing with the most dyee of all is
Your fingertips, which are kinda like rainbows
Some so dy-eed they’re black.
No one wants to eat these aiggs, so fiddled and dipped and dried
Except Grandpa, who has one for
breakfast
But everyone cried because he had to
break the shell
And the smell of sulphur was really
something awful.
Aigs, aigs, these are Easter egges,
Representing the tomb of Christ, the
stone rolled away
The Resurrection of hatching
A chicken into a chick
And dipped fingers
And childhood returned, and returned,
and returned
Once again.
