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Steel Hawsers
Madeleine French
trapped in cold dirt
a tiny seed
reaches for
a dingy shaft of sunlight
with translucent leaves—some
might tell us
those soft shoots
are fragile,
easily broken
you know better—you,
and that flower
might tell us
how to weave
steel hawsers
through delicate stems
might tell us
how to leave
a most precious
belief buried
might tell us
how a petal unfurls
how a fist unclenches
Madeleine French lives in Florida and Virginia with her husband. A Best of the Net nominee, her work appears in Identity Theory, ONE ART, Dust Poetry Magazine, West Trade Review, Door Is A Jar, Thimble Literary Magazine, Susurrus, San Antonio Review, and elsewhere. She is working on a full-length poetry collection.
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