Iron, Wax

Your voice, without buzz or notice,
brought news; thank you. Here,
for weeks, everywhere, freed by pickaxe & shovel,
mud: the atmosphere so pregnant with its iron,
you can taste it on your lips—any day now,
the letting—but this morning, sweat
glistering my rough-raw hands, I remembered
our first transgressions: your saying, what matters most,
is what happened first, what came before. Sometimes,
even now, I can still believe it.

Terry L. Kennedy
“Iron, Wax” is from Until the Clouds Shatter the Light that Plates our Lives (Jeanne Duval Editions, 2011).