The Secret of the Smith

Abstract

The secret of the smith lingers in the smithy, passed from father to son. The hamer on the anvil. Scent of sound on iron. In the window is a tin of nails. An empty milk bottle. The radio on. The smithy swelters and sweats. It clangs through your deafened ears. I stand in her room look at the unmade bed. As if a bed should once was made —your little bed spread—as if speech and metal could ever melt into a shape that was definitive. When it wouldn’t stop raining I left the workplace and wandered along paths drowned by rotting wheat. I saw people as scarecrows and not a single bird. Clouds, heavy sacks of pubic hair hauled across the small swimming pool. I sawed the young trees into huts and firewood. In the city, men kindled fire with balls of wet words to warm up their meager guts. War— it’s always being waged. Once more, the room that hazy light knowing all and, still, this poem. The cat leapt on the anvil and butted her head against me. The smith brushed her aside.