THE BLACKSMITH

Night.

A trailer in a trailer park.

TV noise and the twitching light.

A worn faux leather chair.

A weary body in it.

A dull mind.

A beer can open on a cork coaster.

Eyes glazed staring through the boxed-in glow.

An elbow: an angle balanced on the chair.

And the fist. The raised fist,

clenched and pumping, keeping

the massive muscle, the rock-hard forearm, contracted:

a machine unto itself – and the only remedy and magic

this man has against the dragon of pain

that haunts and taunts him at the end of every day

when he is not forging black metal with metal and fire.

When there is not a hot hammer in his hand.