Surviving Is Not Enough

You will pull the yoke on clay until your shoulder blades fuse

and your feet swell pregnant with pain.

You will shed skin until crystal grows over your eyes

And the bridge of your nose is stronger

 than the dreamsyou netted in a forgotten summer trance.

Your breath will summon hope on desert winds,

And you will say:

"I will survive this just yet;

What does not kill me

Makes me stronger."

And you will walk straighter,

Your spine suddenly an iron rod,

Under a face that melts into mercurial grins,

While your heart is glum with your commitment to metallurgy.

Will you notice your shoulders cracking,

Your bones surprised with the spirit that calls your body home?

You will bury your smiles under wet shores,

Waiting to finish the season;

Do you hope to rub fermented laughter into your soles

Hoping that the bitterness they inherited from the seas will have dried away?

Will you lick your wounds and taste wickedness?

You know you will find it there;

It grows on destitute fields under forced motion,

And you love to harvest.

Oh, you love to harvest.