“Reader, in your hand you hold
A silver case, a box of gold.
I have no door, however small,
Unless you pierce my tender wall,
And there’s no skill in healing then
Shall ever make me whole again.
Show pity, Reader, for my plight:
Let be, or else consume me quite.”

—Jay Macpherson, “Egg,” from Poems Twice Told: The Boatman & Welcoming Disaster, 1981. As quoted in Enigmas and Riddles in Literature by Eleanor Cook, 2006.