The Burning Anvil

      My breast is a burning anvil
      Cannot hammer a likely shoe
      Stern enough to trace unglued
      A racing lifetime through and through.
5     My breast is a burning anvil
      Full of causal smokes and coughs,
      More than youth at times had thought,
      Between hammer and anvil caught.
      My breast is a burning anvil
10    That sparks with the loss of heat
      When edge and edge, hard and hard, compete
      To shape each and each to mate.
      My breast is a burning anvil
      Cannot cease to pause or cool,-
15    As industrious, dedicate a tool
      As any I'd forgot I forged.
      My breast is a burning anvil
      Full of tragic din and error
      As any beating thing that mirrors
20    The hotness of my terror.
      My breast is a burning anvil
      Cannot pound out a likely star
      As real as evening's first clear
      At whose clarity I stare.

 

From the collection "The Timid Leaper"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.