cicada on the breakfast table

you were a cicada shell

black on the breakfast table

of want next to salad forks

and dessert spoons dirtying

the gingham tablecloth

privilege kept your crumbs

from touching the table

there was nothing left inside

after flying all day every day

you just screamed

at the baby cicadas

amazed how your own

voice echoed inside

the very empty shell

next to you an egg-headed man

cracked open an egg

with a little egg spoon

in a little egg cup

and even the egg

had a golden heart

but you were a stain

on the table all crackled

with age all empty

with work your eyes

sightless lenses your hands

curled in dried hairy fists

the old man put a round

juicy tomato in his mouth

he didn't bother to slap

the cicada anymore

because it wasn't a bug

anymore just a black shell

even a cocoon is filled

with something even the fluids

have life as green as rosebuds

as green as a baby cicada

just born under the plate

already running from

the hard smack of the egg spoon

born detested but filled

soon to be cracked and

emptied of the gold heart

you were a cicada shell

black on the breakfast table

you had something inside once

something alive that left you

there useless under

a rich man's eye who

never clears the table

until it is just a graveyard

of cicada shells and eggshells

around an always replenished plate  

— July 2021, Huntington, NY