The eggshells were powder blue, tan
and white. All of them cut lengthwise with a razor blade.

I watched her work. Bracing each egg in her fingers
as her other hand sliced along the meridian.

She didn’t saw. Grandma moved the blade
a millimeter at a time, always in the same direction

the way an artist might sketch in charcoal.
Yolk slipped through her fingers

as two halves pulled apart, each with a smooth edge.
When the shells were rinsed and dried

she painted them with scenes on the inside surface.
Through a tiny hole bored through the rim,

each finished work hung from the curtain rod on a line.
Morning sun backlit their calcium skins.

Grandma’s works were ghostly x-rays. Skeletal embryos
appeared in shadow. A chick

curled inside its egg. A lizard with its parasitic twin
pulling two tails toward its mouth.

Lorrie Ness is a poet writing in a rural corner of Virginia. When she’s not writing, she can be found stomping through the woods, watching birds and playing in the dirt. Her work can be found in numerous journals, including THRUSH, Palette Poetry and Sky Island Journal. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021 and her chapbook, “Anatomy of a Wound” was published by Flowstone Press in July of 2021.