Between the work at workand the work at home, I rushinside a grocery to buythe bits for quick breakfasts                                                                that leave me hungry                                                                by the time I return to my office.                                                                It is an organic market,                                                                and as I shop I can hear my mother—her mouth full of pennies—mocking each cent I overpayfor staples. But time’s expenseburns black holes in pockets,                                                                so no detour to a cheaper store.                                                                So honey priced like wine.                                                                So six eggs for what would                                                                buy twelve. All in the nameof time. It will be days before Ihave a moment when I canpause my pre-commuteto click on the electric kettle, boil                                                                water for steeping rooibos                                                                and poaching eggs. Eventually,                                                                I reach inside the refrigerator,                                                                revisit the words “cage-free”“pasture-raised” which all read,in my earlier haste, like gibberishstrings of dollar signs. Crackedopen, what the brown pods                                                                release into the ramekin is a yolk-                                                                yellow so plump and lucent.                                                                I tear up thinking of all the weak                                                                or sallow suns I have droppedinto water, of the stressedexistences that made those eggs.What of my thin shell or myown yoke unbroken within me                                                                (both functions of money, time,                                                                deficits)? And I know nothing                                                                about industrial farms. And I                                                                understand so much of blacknessas what I do in spite of my caging.But I know I cannot buy anotheregg not laid by a birdI believe foraged, walked freely                                                                under the sun—deciding                                                                how to value her motion, her blood.                                                                A bourgeois privilege, I know.                                                                But if not to make that choice,why else am I grinding myself down for these wages?