The Price of Eggs

We wanted our white shoes on the asphalt, unmuddied
by floodwaters
licking the rim of river
banks, we wanted our houses
enclosed with polite fences & leaf-blown
yards of authoritarian grass,
we wanted the dreams
but didn’t want the dandelions
growing wild with delighted bees,
we wanted the candy-red strawberries
but didn’t want the brown
hands that picked them,
we wanted a photo of us
looking happy & free
surrounded by beautiful things,
we wanted white eggs & white fences
holding in the bone-ash hills,
we walked the smooth sidewalk
in our new shoes through
the quiet neighborhood,
blood in our tracks
all the way home.