breakfast

in the morning, silently, as every morning, cook breakfast--potatoes one day, grits another, breaking a lot of eggs, pushing my yolks through the pan. breakfast is sacred, always has been, especially in morning. can anyone really think up the things he writes? some days i ponder murky questions over potatoes, grits, or broken yolks. some days i just deal with headaches. the oily coffee that bubbles in a modest fountain through the oily dago coffee pot softens the sharper edges of my brain, reminds me of a certain aspect of home. certain nights. some days i take my breakfast over company, at the table by the window where the blazing sun shines in over Pasadena--some days i retire to my cell, to the cold hum of mechanical air, to write for fuel. two thousand words a day now. i wonder if i'll ever run out. there's a comfort in the anonymity, knowing that no one needs to know, as i tap out paragraphs, chewing on potatoes, tightly sipping oily coffee, swallowing mouthfuls of broken yolks. some people never eat breakfast, and i wonder what horrible days must await them.