First Memory: Soft-Boiled Egg

Lunchtime; I’m in my highchair throne.
My mother aims the hated spoon
of soft-boiled egg at my bud-tight mouth:
the warm and almost liquid yolk,
the not-quite done-right albumen.

She’s insistent, importunate,
so I open up; the spoon goes in.
Years later, she confessed: she found
the eggs disgusting too. “But good
for you, soft-boiled eggs,” she said.