Self Portrait Poem by Joyce Lazarus

Robust and full-bodied
once a creamy white luster
it’s now opaque.
Age cracks run like fine veins
through the well-worn clay.
Tiny chips, like childhood pocks.
etch the thick-lipped rim.
The bowl sits alone near the center
of the old round table
where generations of families once
passed their lives to each other
like salt, like bread.
It’s empty now, save for the shadows
of eggs it once contained.
Fresh, hard-shelled, warm,
thick, golden-yolked,
long ago consumed
yet held by it still.