North is sweet to iron, and iron
is sweet to the tongue, is splintered
in veins, under skin. Iron sleeps
in the north, under stone, hushed
by nearness to the thing it desires.
Skin, and stone, and iron, dreaming.
(of an auburn sky,
a smoky shore, clouds rusting and feathered,
lit from within, dark clustered blueberries,
sweeter than iron— splitting under tongue.
Depthless waters, and the soft, arterial
susurrus of wind.)
This iron land, its sullen valleys,
spiny ridges, sun-hewn stones,
the blooming underneath, deepwater shores—
the needle turns to there. The center,
the heart of the world.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 21, Issue 3.
M. Hlavka is a student and writer from Minnesota. Hlavka’s works concern queerness, ecology, and the intersections of the two. This is their first publication.
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