Blacksmith

The night is huge and powerful,
a dark muscle, massive and bulging,
changing as a hammer hits
hot steel the color of sunset
and sizzling stars shoot
into the blackness of forge smoke.
There is no reason to face this,
she says, and a ship sinks below the surface
of convolutions and ripples.
He takes the bottle with the ship in it
and pours out an ocean around him
drowning till the clouds part
and in the full moon light
the faces of the bobbing, bloated crew
shine with grins.

The diamond of the day had a flaw
and through that crack came the brutal black –
the bulging blacksmith pounding, pounding,
telling all you wanted secret,
heralding in the ample night.