God tries on skin
by Marjorie Maddox Phifer
Once, he stretched skin over spirit
like a rubber glove,
aligning trinity with bone,
twining through veins
until deity square-knotted flesh.
In a whirlwind spin
he shrank to the size of a zygote,
bobbed in a womb warm as Galilee’s shore.
In the dark,
he brushed up on Hebrew,
practiced his crawl.
After months scrunched in a circle,
he burst through his cellophane sac,
bloodied the teen legs
spread on the straw.
In his first breath
he inhaled the sweat
of Romans casting lots,
sniffed the wine mixed with gall.
Christian Leithart 