Strength
Strength has returned to ribs, wrist, fingers.
I can now deal a blow, if required.
Nothing emotional.
I can easily survive the slightest current of wind
or tide, and lift a steel ingot.
I am happy to inform opposing parties
that I will be on the lookout for any ploys to disrupt
or change my lucky circumstances.
Do not seek me indoors where a rise
in body temperature might stealthily evolve.
I prefer the valley where sheep in sunlight
feed on fiddleheads and sprigs of purslane.
I am sturdy, sharp.
No ailing, no convalescence.
Irene Mitchell is the author of Equal Parts Sun and Shade: An Almanac of Precarious Days (Kelsay Books, 2017), Minding the Spectrum’s Business (FutureCycle Press, 2015), A Study of Extremes in Six Suites (Cherry Grove Collections, 2012), and Sea Wind on the White Pillow (Axes Mundi Press, 2009). Formerly Poetry Editor of Hudson River Art Journal, Mitchell has served as poetry contest juror, and facilitator of poetry workshops. She is known for her collaborations with visual artists and composers .A rich selection of her poems has been set to music for piano and voice. Several of her poems have been commissioned for a series of framed artworks in the form of broadsides.
