Poem: "Weight Lifting Man"

Weight Lifting Man

As the heat from the fire drew up the chimney,
The flame pressing, brushing out the last thread,
Constantly revising itself upwards to a pure line.
--Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, “Woman Shoeing a Horse”

In the city,
in a room lit
bright as a mortuary,

I have seen a pure line
held
quivering between

a man steeped in sweat
and
a weight,

dumb, repetitive, heroic,
and for that
I ache.

*

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