Build Rust

      You ever think it's time to start thinkingabout changing your life, that dog      you can't kick? A quick thought. Quickis what it cut to. Fireflies in summer hail.      I had a theory about the exactly-obvious.Most art fails from being over- or under-obvious.      The student said she wantedher work to be about abrasion, but she hardly      abraded anything. The chisel itselfshould fray. The hand should. The eye,      encountering it. You don't need moreexplanation than that. So I started cultivating rust.      20% population loss in the pasteighteen years. I moved here. Dense canopy      fireflies rose up early in, mistaking dusk.Let rust be what we make. It is. As sourdough      employs ambient yeast, tastingof local air. Rust Belt. Built rust. "Build      soil," writes Robert Frost. "Turnthe farm in upon itself / Until it can contain      itself no more." Time authors it. Youspeed its rustic flush with hydrogen peroxide, vinegar,      and salt. "An Elemental Rust,"says Dickinson. I grew it on the inside      of a can. A rustling effect. A chandelier.A .22. Its cartridges. A bit of window screen patching      a screen. Then removed it from steel platesexactingly and set it places      it won't grow. Driftwood, mirrors.A contact lens. I held, with rusted gloves,      the rusted wooden handle of a pristine axe.The meaning is I wanted to see it. I trusted that.      I dream of increasing the metallic qualitiesof flowers—I'm adding iron to the water, watering      the peonies—and spraying the blossoms with my solution. I dream the rust-pollen      will pass to bees. I dream of sprayingthe bees.