After Leonor Fini's Egg Guardian Paintings, by Karen Neuberg

Guardian of the Red Egg, by Leonor Fini (Italy, b. Argentina) 1955

​Guardian of the Red Egg

Sans mask, my flame hair
shorn, 
instead I adorn

myself in shimmering 
gown and russet shawl 
falling

in wavy tresses down 
my back. I kneel before the glow
as yet unseen. 

What else to do
but what is expected— 
safeguard the red egg

I hold aloft between
my palms. I feel its life
pulsing inside the shell. 

Time to start the crack, break
the seal, let light in.
Let it all begin.
​

Guardian of the Black Egg, by Leonor Fini (Italy, b. Argentina) 1955

Guardian of the Black Egg

It’s heavy as it rests in my lap.
My gown, the colour of fading
roses. My cloak the colour of water.
Egg and I, ward and guardian, 
only ourselves in this desolation.
A fire razed, a fire burned, a fire 
took all. Now I wait. Though patience 
is not my best skill, it is expected.
Until ... I don’t know what. Or when.
Or what else to do. The sun
spills and warms. The black egg
is restless to free its fire creature--
dragon or phoenix. And then we’ll see 
what kind of future there will be.
​
​Karen Neuberg

Karen Neuberg is the author of the full-length poetry collection, PURSUIT (Kelsay Press) and three chapbooks including the elephants are asking (Glass Lyre) Her poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Inflectionist Review, Unbroken, Unlikely Stories, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.