Inside this smelting shop
rank with disease and chemicals
I extract another day
melding with uncertain hand
the alloy to support it.
The shop is small
the tools crude
the flame unsteady
the elements unstable --
Anger -- volatile, sparking heedless,
must be forced to ground.
Hope -- a tease, I do not control.
Despair, hunger, humor, lust --
old insistent compounds in these structures.
And endurance -- old friend,
only sighing.