Three Poems By Darren C. Demaree 

What The Metal Holds Too Long Is Consumed By Fire #31 

It’s lovely
& significant
that the metal
 
is intractable,
but in the dark
the squeeze
 
happens
without
happening.
 


 

What The Metal Holds Too Long Is Consumed By Fire #32

& after that,
the jostle
is a search
 
for the half-
error that
has lead
 
to the play
of shadows
against
 
the animal’s
flanks.
In a good,
 
ruining fire,
you can
watch
 
a terror
of a movie
that way.





What The Metal Holds Too Long Is Consumed By Fire #33

Thrust upward
& shooting out
onto the gravel
 
the inelegance
of the final dance
is dramatic,
 
but it’s of no use
to the vulnerability
of a land
 
that was once
so hard
with actual growth.
​

Bio: Darren C. Demaree is the author of five poetry collections, most recently "The Nineteen Steps Between Us" (2016, After the Pause). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. His poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including the South Dakota Review, Meridian, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. He is currently living and writing in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

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