flee

I flee

sharp teeth guard my back

one leg anchored to a plow

the other ready to run

I’m a refugee

fleeing oblivion

the salvage yard, the fiery caldron

the melting down, the disappearing

once I had purpose

now I’m only in the way

taking up space in a shed

developers will raze and haul away

all I have, I carry on my back

attack me and bleed

get in my way and I’ll gash you

I’ll not go gently

I stand

ready to defend myself

sharp teeth guard my back

I run and I run and I run

5-21-21

This is the second of the three ekphrastic poems that I wrote and performed on Wednesday night at Orangeburg County Fine Art Center. This sculpture was outside of what I normally write to; I wrote the first descriptive stanza on Tuesday and woke up on Wednesday and wrote the story that was sleeping in that first stanza:

poem for Home Grown,

a welded metal sculpture, by Glenn Saborosch

(photo by the artist, Glenn Saborosch)