I’ve interviewed biologists
  And folks on farming mailing lists,
    And zookeepers, and breeders of all metazoan life.
But none of them have given me the answer that I beg:
  Which came first—the chicken, or the egg?

I know how foxes get their wives—
  Know why they mate by twos, not fives—
    And similar for almost every creature on the Earth.
But still I cannot say (although my knowledge-base is vast!)
  Of the egg and chicken, which came last?

I’ve plumbed the mysteries of birth
  And yet, for all this data’s worth,
    I might as well have never bothered with one bit of it.
I’ve yet to learn the answer to the query that’s my curse:
   The chicken or the egg—which one came first?

I’d like to get above it—
  Or else, failing that, just shove it—
     But the mystery will haunt me for as long as I exist.
Unless I someday learn which of this duo was first quickened:
  Was it the egg? Or else was it the chicken?