The hills my brothers & I created
Never balanced, & it took years
To discover how the world worked
We could look at a tree of blackbirds
& tell you how many were there
But with the scrap dealer
Our math was always off
Weeks of lifting & grunting
Never added up to much
But we couldn't stop
Believing in iron
Abandoned trucks & cars
Were held to the ground
By thick, nostalgic fingers of vines
Strong as a dozen sharecroppers
We'd return with our wheelbarrow
Groaning under a new load
Yet tiger lilies lived better
In their languid, August domain
Among paper & Coke bottles
Foundry smoke erased sunsets
& we couldn't believe iron
Left men bent so close to the earth
As if the ore under their breath
Weighed down the gray sky
Sometimes I dreamt how our hills
Washed into a sea of metal
How it all became an anchor
For a warship or bomber
Out over trees with blooms
Too red to look at