Litany

Elizabeth Harvell

Three of us dipped our hands into the pool 
of light, one already dying. And waited.
We waited for the goldfinch to form

from the light, to show us its eye, open
and pull from us the last of the sickness. 
When it turned its head, we reached, 

hoped, for one look, 
one round pool of iris and pupil
to absorb what we could not say. 

But one of us fell from the circle, broke
her body from the sight of the bird, 
and cast her falling eye on the point 

of light that held us together, 
fused us there, pinwheel of silence,
each of us a crux, a wing.

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