the Iron Lady

​hair an unborn rain color
lips a flower-breath festival
eyes a double sunset
 
fingers in winter sift firewood ash
to rescue spent nails from common burial
 
feet in spring re-search back alleys
where hands scavenge
rusted bolts broken blades small tangles of wire
 
a whole-body finale
upon the strike of midsummer's noon
charges its garden
armed with a double-handled digger
 
twelve holes later under stinging shower
she circles and begins a wait
for the new of the next moon
 
at that exact moment by lantern light
she feeds in her yearly steel-crumb collection
backfills each hole with drooling soil then
celebrates with raisins
and juicy pitted prunes
 
she nourishes the earth she must
because some men
have bled its metal out
 
she nurses the earth she must
because she must
 
so she reaches a fist out to the night
pulling in a positive charge then
 
amused by its sudden gravity in her chest
tunnels through her unlit house
all the way to the mirror
to laugh at the image
of a servant who drops to her knees
on warm mornings
and fingers the globe like a rosary bead


​First published in January 2022 in Tiny Seed Literary Journal