Iron Woman by Diane Glancy

Iron Woman

by Diane Glancy

published in her 1990 book by the same name

I knew I came from a different place,

a story cut apart with scissors.

I would find a piece of rust in the morning

or a shape in the field through a fog.

I would hear a broken language

as if spoken by a woman

with a bird’s nest on her head,

long pieces of iron welded for her buckskin.

She wears a mosquito mask,

a crooked twig for a nose.

Her teeth sewn together with close white threads.

I hear her small voice

from the bird’s nest on her head.

It once lived in a pile of fallen limbs & brush

hauled to the field to burn after an ice storm.

Her voice rises in the trail of smoke

& mixes with mine in air.

It takes a while to speak with these two voices

as it takes a while to walk on two feet

each one going the other way.