A New Egg

The day after "NYE", which I always hear in my mind as "nee-yeeeeeeeeee", sounding like the beginning of a cherry bomb going off, the invisible, terrifying time in the confused dark before it explodes in the air hundreds of feet, safely, above your head, we go to a french restaurant to celebrate that ritualized paean to our communal recklessness. Brunch. A word that seems to describe the action of lustily biting into a very chewy hunk of brown bread in German, a language I don't speak. People wearing sunglasses (neon, plastic), glasses full of restorative juices, cutlery being knocked onto the ground with the precision of a military band. Like a big, sly wink, this brunch, traces of champagne and glitter on everyone's faces.

My poached egg comes, poached, a concept never fully understood in my mind, something french and secretive. It is wonderful, puffy and delicate and quivery, like scarlett johanssen's breasts in pictures, white as snow, a pillow, for sleeping, a promise, for breaking. When I slice delicately into it, parting the hollandaise expertly, I imagine I'm a surgeon, world-class, the kind that saves lives easily, like maybe in her spare time, as a hobby, when not para-gliding off of cliff faces. I finish my cut, and a small tidal wave of viscous fluid floods the plate, lapping the shore of a mountain of potatoes. I spy the alien yellow heart of a yolk tucked in the pillowy shell before it explodes spectacularly, rushing to meet the lake of primordial ooze that has spread to cover the entire plate. "ewwwww", I whisper, reverentially. The first egg of the year, raw and glistening, spread out on a big plate, just for me. I smile, and scoop up a big spoonful.