IRON

Although not at first apparent,
The most like our bodies.

From the beginning,
Unyielding and hard.
Like Promethius with cupped hands,

It enters the fire for us,
Stealing a tongue
From that hot, flaming beast.

It enters the fire,
It brands our names,
It has the instinct to possess or shares it.
Manacles are made from it.

Used to press clothes flat,
To heat the air in a house
While the tongues of fire roar

And strain in its cage.

Of strong people one says
Hard as iron, as nails.
Michelangleo would not have used it.

Heating to white in the fire,
It dies in the air.
Air is death to it,

Air pours over iron like time,
Corrupting, as time corrupts a body.

No matter how one fights it off,
It comes,
The inevitable, rotten triumph of rust.