St. Mena, Gardener of Metals
Rent from DeepDyve- St. Mena, Gardener of Metals
I bless the lichens that bloom pig iron to ferruginous corallita, bless the molds that pit iridium bracts, bless the brume that patinates glades of serrated brass. In orchards manured with antimony, I harvest bushels of burnished mangoes, galvanized guavas, nickel-budded paw-paws, tin naseberries that soon rot to pewter. And in my hothouse by the sea, I tend the stray rhodium, groom the cast-off vanadium, graft the foundling gallium, braze the misunderstood cerium. Beware you misers of gold, you hoarders of silver, you ransomists of platinum, you abductors of palladium. I will crack your vaults, rifle your tills, pilfer your strongboxes, then release your captives to the flame, tossing the molten clots into breakwater sloughs, floating the slag over dark waters, ploughing the raw bullion into limestone’s watery womb. [End Page 109]
Orlando Ricardo Menes directs the creative writing program at the University of Notre Dame. His third full-length collection of poetry, Fetish, won the 2012 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. He was also the recipient of an nea Literature Fellowship in 2009.
