What We Need is the Iron Certainty of Trunks

our grandmothers misplaced. They grew old
by convention, just to keep counting. Get yours in material
and heft them to those houses. Plonk them
on their floors. Occupy space
without shame and time like a lesson.
Than waiting for people to stitch new shapes
for you, lock your own clothes. Before they walk you
to their squared-out clothes-closets and point, flood yours
in your trunks. Celebrate the splinter where a trespasser
gets snagged, the warded-lock that snaps open loud,
the dent that marks the face. Bring more to
your trunks, more ladderbrakes from the moss-walls
of water-wells, more of what you think
is lovely or kind or yours. More of your sure voice, more
tenderness. Not ironed out—but as iron
that rusts with age, as iron that needs care, as iron
that’s loud and lasting, as iron that scrapes
its myths that wouldn’t wash off, as that wouldn’t
budge, as heavy in your hand, unapologetically. Brim
your trunk with all that. What we need
is the iron certainty of our trunks.