Bearable

An x-ray of a kiwi
With an egg ready to lay
Holds a kind of comedy—

The grown bird’s skeleton wraps
Around the massive ovoid
Like inked ornamentation,

Like macabre carved filigree
Around an oval mirror.
The vast egg sits like it fell

Into the inadequate
Midden of delicate bones.
One doesn’t ask, of the bones,

If they seem exceptional
Enough to deserve the egg.
One admires their survival.

A person with a talent
For art in any genre
Is similarly absurd,

At first, and similarly
Deserves awestruck sympathy.
Instead, the greater the gift,

The more people grow perplexed
At the cramped, unimpressive
Personhood of its artist.

How could this genius be fool?
How could their moral stature
Be so crabbed, given the scope

And sweep of their sculpted thoughts?
People! The greater the gift,
The more it crushes the bones.

Better to ask how this life
Could bear its own creation.
You want a better person

Responsible for the art?
Find one with a smaller gift
To carry, say, a chicken.