Breakfast Math

Six dollars and forty cents for a dozen.

I stand by the glass and calculate the toll,

thinking of the bird and the life she was chosen

to live in a cage for the sake of my roll.

I’m trading ten minutes of labor for protein,

doing the division on a wet grocery floor.

One egg in the corner is cracked and unclean,

leaking a clear, thick trail toward the door.

It’s a messy ledger we keep in the light,

counting the pennies and the cracks in the shell.

We’re all just trying to get through the night

without paying more than we’re willing to sell.