Steel for the Plow

the fringe of the morning was already ablaze

chalk feet ashen tongue

blooming alone in dormant bodies

taking skin from the patchwork of the sycamores

water from cut sapwood of elder grapevines

imagining they were our own backbones

and we had forgotten our wings

still we could see them in the breaths of shadows

spreading into the half-light lost from the room

one wing shook

a sharp memory of sea-glass

fireflies in fractured rain

the other stretched

fabric spilling from the hands

a river washing the knees of deer

the detonations of stars

warming the settled stones

one clenched hand shimmering

octane bursting

across still water