Inkwell 2018-2019

More Than Metal By Erin Hansbrough

I know a dragon dark as carbon With blue eyes like bilberries That shine in the blackness. She’s beautiful, slender, Delicate fingers reach out to me As I trace her soot-streaked sides. She’s quiet too, soft in a way, And her billowing wings unfurl gently Each time she glides towards the sky. Sometimes I try to follow her, but I’m heavy, iron-plated, steel talons That scrabble across the cobblestone And I can never lift off. Sheet metal wings could never fly,

And she’s so scared every time I throw myself off the cliff again Just to see if I can reach the upper atmosphere, But she’s always there to catch me When, inevitably, I plummet back to the ground. She sighs then, and it sounds like Angels, or maybe the very first dragons That walked the earth four million years ago. She tells me that even though she’s bone and breathing And I’m bubbling magma and embers, Copper scales and built by other hands In some forgotten forge, I’m beautiful too. On those days when she takes my dented hands In hers, the rust fades from my tarnished heart, And perhaps I’ve started to believe her.

Andrew Hutton

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