woman, Balanchine once said, and I was one— one wife, one ballerina, one body sketching the line George imagined. I spun fire and wings from bone and blood, the key to locked chambers from tissue and fat, the sun’s bravura from endless mirrored study. When man first kindled fire, perfection was not first thought, but what can I next achieve.
The body is poor tinder, burning into ash. I am left with a river of princes, a fairy book story, the curse of aging. Somewhere, someone is turning a version of my Firebird, sliver of knowledge that I sparked God’s flame first.
Andrea O'Brien's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various publications, including The Hopkins Review, Connecticut Review, Nimrod International Journal, and The New York Quarterly. In 2007, the Kentucky Foundation for Women awarded Andrea an Artist Enrichment grant to begin writing her second collection of poems. She lives in Denver with her husband and works as a writer and editor.
