Stir up chains in a big pot.
Stick it on the stovetop at high heat.
Pepper in some silver dust and witch-hazel.
When the metal half glows
And your forearms burn from stirring
Dump it all into a sack with the thing.
Let the hot metal slither in like a snake
Down onto the limbs of your not-daughter
Your used-to-be son.
You can’t get back what it’s taken,
You can’t even kill it. Not really.
But that’s not the point.
You can remind them,
Those little men of dusk and leaf litter,
That we don’t always come unhinged in our grief
That there is anger in us more strong and biting
Than the raw wet thrashings of tooth and claw.
