Sloss Furnaces, Birmingham, September 16th 1963
Puncture the mud, the iron pours out
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tongue of fire, not a word
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stays still but breaks along the channels
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pressed in the cast floor’s sand.
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Now it’s pigs suckling at the sow’s
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iron teats, so many children blind
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to the air and world that harden them.
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A gift. Dark come on. When
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the slag-man pulls the plug, fire
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explodes, its violent, molten light
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bathes the irons, a glow on their spines
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like stained glass or twilight fades
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on headstones’ crests, row on row on row
