Once an egg cracks, the yolk can’t go back.
Once pigments bind together, painters focus
on a single bird—Spirit descending on beams
of light. No one paints the other bird—in the gut,
ascending up through the throat, sharp,
wet-winged. No one talks about coughing up
feathers. No one prepares you for
when it wants space. You find out for yourself,
on a bus, in a field, near the orange crates
in the market—splitting open is the cost
of advent. When that dove flies through
the open window, my spirit thrashes wings.
I’m threshed, holding skin on my bones.
And when those two birds meet—
by Brittany Deininger
Brittany Deininger received an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in theology from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. Her work has appeared in On Being, Eco Theo Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Vita Poetica, and elsewhere. She lives in New York.
back to Issue 18