Plant your voice on the anvil.  I write my name
in rust just as you in soot.  And you
in skin.  Riveted by flint.  Coated by grit.  
Send me on my way.

What I will find in the foundry
is ****.  The husk of some steam shovel
lurching over asphalt.  Rip my organs
from the mouth and bore into me.

Bellows amid sparks.  Flame in columns.    
There was a puddle I would stand
in to quicken the surge.  Groping
wholeness in each crescent flare.

My family alone far away.  Valley Forge
wet with orange.  Tossing crumbs to ducks
from the path.  I would join them.
My hands would split open crab.

We row to the dam’s lip and wait
for sturgeon, rocking.  Pumice and sand.
Beat and grind and reduce me bare.
Tongue fumbling for the tip.

I think she would be proud of me.