POEMS
Marge Piercy
THE ANNEALING
We begin in a burning house.
We begin by bandaging each
other's wounds. We begin by
holding each other in night
streaked with tracer bullets
from lovers turned haters.
I hike toward you with pain
riding my back like a grandfather,
my blood burning its oil
from the murdered
leviathans of lost years.
Collision of choice and accident,
we are thrust at each other
like abandoned animals who crawl
shelter and bodily warmth.
With the stench of smoke
and soot, webs
and ashes in our hair,
none the less we carry
each embers of a hearth
fire we'll lay together
in the ruins where we
will build a new house
round as a sleeping cat, as
our clasped hands
founded as all living are
on the bedrock of death.
