New Mirage Journal

Mettle

This wintered tree is metal
settled in the front yard
like an old umbrella
clothesline, naked tines
that splice,
plasticize the sky
turn everything upside down.

Now the sky is fractured,
marbled by the maple turned
bluish-red like a varicose vein
(I don’t have yet).
Mine the images, no, mind all
the images—they are true—
winter air silverized

like diaphanous tinsel,
a mound of pubic hair.
I have not a gray or white
on my head. It preys
on my mind
to be pure silver.
The first gray—

I found between my legs—
a special thread
a misplaced string
a lightning bolt
or some other kind of ore
the mother lode
that I can make whatever of

like a shaft
of branching light.

~Terri McCord