|
Iron Jake Adam York
I thought we all began with air, everything in debt to oxygen or water, the air locked there. But today the papers say iron: this world’s first life breathed iron in and blew air out. Then came all the rest. Now my yard will never look the same, the deep rust of clay flashing through the scrub, old ocean floor, ash of air. It shines like the bank of native ochre that’s piled across the road to shoulder rails like favorite sons and give to the grip of trailer-kids who mine the bank for a clod to open like an apple, then charged with the shock of iron run the tracks and play grenades. When they eat I wonder what they see, what I saw before my parents straightened me with talk of kind: the simple dirt, or fruit without tree? Today, they scale the levee as thunderheads swell, and as I cross the road and clamber to the gravel bed, the taste rises, familiar as lipstick, a ghost on my tongue. The distance rumbles in. We can smell the coming storm. But I’ll stride the rails a minute longer, then bend beside the kids, fill my hands and begin again, right here. Originally appeared in Texas Review
|
Return to Spring 2007 Table of Contents