Flat Eggs by Cruz Villarreal (ONE GOOD MEMORY Series)

Flat Eggs
by Cruz Villarreal

In my kitchen,
I make breakfast for my granddaughter.
A small, wide-eyed girl with long brown braids.
She calls the two bright suns swimming in the frying pan,
flat eggs.
She says, no one makes them better.

I wonder
if she’ll look back
one day,
the same way I look back
and remember a small boy
in an adobe house
where the sound of a rooster
greets the morning,
and gentle rays of sunshine
make their way through
a small earthen window beside my bed
and gently caress my face.

Then
from under the wooden bed
comes the scuffle of tiny hoofs
as a baby goat scurries out to find his mother.

I rise and venture into the courtyard,
noisy chickens scatter beneath my feet,
angry that I’ve disturbed their breakfast.

Across the courtyard
is grandmother’s house
fashioned in the old way
of mud and sticks.

In her kitchen,
she makes me breakfast,
two golden suns swimming in a frying pan,
my flat eggs.
I say, no one made them better.

Photo by Ellesi.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The poem “Flat Eggs” evokes a childhood memory of visits to my grandparents’ small ranch in Santa Apolonia, Mexico, as a boy. The home place was surrounded by adobe houses where aunts’ and uncles lived as they worked the land. We would stay in the big house and the adobe kitchen across the way a bit was where grandmother could be found preparing meals on an adobe stove heated with wood. I would rise early and make my way to her kitchen. There she would give me a hug sit me down and then prepare my breakfast of fried eggs. I can still see her in a colorful dress and long braids cooking over her stove.

PHOTO: Old Adobe House, Mexico (New York Public Library Digital Collection, Detroit Publishing Company postcards).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cruz Villarreal is a local Lansing, Michigan, area poet. A first generation American from Mexican parents, he was born in Carrizo Springs, Texas, and still caries many of the Mexican traditions given him by his parents. He enjoys creative writing, and several of his works have been published locally. More of his work can be read at cruzpoet.openlcc.net. Readers are encouraged to leave comments or suggestions on how to improve his work.