Butter and eggs
Here is the fourth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of 10 poems in his Sassoon Collection.
iv. Butter and eggs
Robust diners, deftly forking in the fat.
O greasy fauna against the heedless tongue
Of buffet and banquet days, what sends them gliding through
This set of dancing teeth?
Theirs are the hungry cadences between
The enraptured chewing of hefty humans that make
Heaven in the booth while second helpings simmer;
And theirs the faintest whispers that hush the desire.
And they are the airship that floats away
Out of the starlit dimness above the moon
And they are the most flexible beings—born
To know but this, the phantom glare of fullness.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the fourth piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. “Butter and eggs” is loosely based on Sassoon’s “Butterflies.” Zumwalt mirrors the original structure, but alters the tone and content considerably.
