Melting Lead

I’ve heard it all my life. Pull up

A chair inside yourself and listen.

A gland in your neck will make

your eyes pulsate, bulge with malignant staring.

Pull up a chair inside yourself and listen. Listen

to a tale of lead hands melting.

A westerly with jagged teeth snaps a beech

In two. Lead hands melt inside its hollowed core.

A fallen tree sounds the air if ears will hear

its cracking bones. Leaden hands will cannibalise

the bellied trunk for firewood. Pull up a chair

inside yourself and listen as a fractured stump

wounds the earth, and wounded earth sifts root

from shallow ground. A pyre ablaze will burn

for days, a spectral beacon at the water’s edge. Lead hands

melted down to liquid silver pouring into the world,

a blister at its centre, cave bled to its heart. Pull up

A chair inside yourself and listen as your hollowed core

is filled with leaden hands, molten leaden hands

filling the empty centre at your heart.

Pull up a chair inside yourself and listen.