» Poetry
The Doctor Looks at My Blood Work
Says: There are blacksmiths in your eyes.
Maybe this explains the forging.
The way I flatten heat. Bang
earth against answer until
I call it knife. Nodding to bellows
in their muddy howls. Told them
chemistry separates from slag.
I speak in gardens. Interrogate
the estrogen and her rising weeds.
From space this earth is more red
than any astronaut will speak.
In the dirt, the iron begs to be born.
I kneel before anvil and pray.
Kelly Grace Thomas
http://www.kellygracethomas.com Kelly Grace Thomas is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, 2018 finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award, and a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. Her first full-length collection, Boat Burned, released with YesYes Books in January 2020. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Best New Poets 2019, Los Angeles Review, Redivider, Nashville Review, Muzzle, DIAGRAM, and more. She is a three-time poetry slam championship coach and the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write and Perform, Classic and Spoken Word Poetry (Literary Riot). She has received fellowships from Tin House Winter Workshop, Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the Kenyon Review Young Writers. Kelly lives in the Bay Area with her husband, Omid, and works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Director of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite.
Author photo by Monique Mitchell.