EGG SANDWICH

Some years ago I was at a design event where I met a woman who clearly liked to be ahead of the trends. She told me about a particular egg sandwich — raved about it, really — yet went on to complain about how downright nasty the shop owner was. I thought to myself: no one who makes a simple egg sandwich so delicious it moves you can possibly be that horrible. So I went to find out.

He was busy when I arrived, and yes, very curt. I ordered my egg sandwich and waited — quiet, peripheral, observatory — to see what would come. As I waited I saw a Hirsch poem he had on display, A Baker Swept By, taken from a New Yorker magazine. It’s marvelous and I hope that you'll read it ("...a freshly baked day").

We began to talk about the poem, and then he started on a related story with such emotion and conviction that he wiped away a tear.
I stood there, egg sandwich in hand, and said to myself: see, Sabine (our trendsetter), you just didn’t know who you were dealing with.

The only appropriate response to this situation seemed to be a poem. I don’t generally write poems, but the ones I like tend to speak about something mundane in a very simple way, observing almost abstractly the deeper transcendent meaning within, as everything has within. Like a camera lens, but of words.


I submitted the poem to Chronogram where it was published in January of 2022, thanks to the generosity of the poetry editor Phillip Levine who kindly hand-delivered a copy of the publication to our infamous baker.

A story of an egg sandwich and a story of community. If you say a moment longer in the space of discomfort, you never know what or who you’ll find. 


Dedicated to Essell and dedicated to Sabine. Gracias.