OXIDANT | ENGINE : Issue 9
Rachel Cruea
There Are No Mirrors Inside Eggs
A bird is placed in front of a mirror;
she builds a nest from her reflection.
She lays an egg. Waits. When the egg
is ready, she cracks the mirror with her beak
and a flock of birds flies out. The birds make nests
from the broken mirror. When they look in
their nests they see other birds. Their eggs
hatch and unable to tell between glass & shell,
they spend their lives making nests from
their eggs until there are no more birds
and only mirrors. Inside me is a bird
who’s never seen her reflection. She builds
a nest from the sound of her own singing.
The egg she lays will become a bird
and is placed in front of a mirror—
Rachel Cruea is an MFA candidate at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she teaches creative writing as a graduate part-time instructor. Along with serving as the managing editor for TIMBER journal, she is a poetry editor for GASHER. Her micro-chap, The Flower Doesn't Dream of the Bee, was published with Ghost City Press this past August, and her work is forthcoming in editions of Whiskey Island Review, Bone Bouquet, and Kettle Blue Review. She is originally from Ohio.