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the hens in the henhouse smell scratchy and rough to me, as i go through the nests and extract the eggs. my grandmother has taught me how to do this, but now, i am on my own. she trusts me. i am what, 7, 8, 9 years old? maybe younger than that. maybe older. memories blur and fuzz and perhaps even grow soft downy feathers as one gets older. i remember the odor, though, of the henhouse. the odor was dark, and musky, and, yes, female. broodish. perhaps the eggs themselves had no aroma. perhaps it was just the aura of the henhouse itself. or, perhaps, still warm from the body heat of the chickens, the eggs smelled of the female body parts they had just passed through on their way to the nest, on their way to my hands, and then into the waiting basket into which i placed them. i carried the warm eggs back to my grandmother, there in her kitchen, where she washed them gently with a soft brush in the sink; she may have used a little dish-washing soap on them, too, but i just can’t remember that part. then, she dried them off and put them in a big white bowl in the refrigerator, where they became cold, and quite odorless, as if there never had been any odor, ever — and, if there had been, we just wouldn’t think about it anymore.