We went from one place—our home, that is—
to a place we’d never been, to make a
theological point. I could have had this baby
my mother and my aunts around me, in my own bed. Instead
we had to go to Bethlehem. Pretty pointless trip, I said.
I wasn’t into narrative at the time, the dramatic
possibilities. Later they added the donkey. There was
no donkey. I walked, like everybody. My belly sloshed
against me with every step. I could feel the animal
inside me protest, unfurl, hurl its sticky fins against
the wet insides of its skin cave. I was its outside,
my own taut skin, possessed, leaping wild—
this furious journey
to claim the realm of air.
Anne Yarbrough's first collection, Refinery (Broadkill River Press), received the 2021 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. Her poems have been or will be in Poet Lore, Delmarva Review, Philadelphia Stories, Amethyst Review, Gargoyle Magazine, CALYX Journal, and elsewhere. She lives along the lower Delaware River.
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