Mayonnaise
by J. Neil C. Garcia
The principle of its thickness
is not found in the oil,
not in the whisking, however
loving that may be.
We know how everything
once began with the egg:
the purest littlest room
where life first took up residence.
There it fattened and rolled on its own
sweet sphere until God decided it was unnatural
for life to be rolling with no purpose forever.
Life must live outside itself.
And the egg cracked like a voice
rumbling in the great quiet emptiness,
when it suddenly happened:
light, a round golden yellow
started to stain bright surfaces
and where it did, life was.
But as I give my own wiry touch of it
with a whisk to an emulsion full of fat,
I remember that life
can only go so far, like mayonnaise -
it toughens to consistency when beaten,
but when allowed to be it breaks.
