Rachael Hershon’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in failbetter, Amaryllis, and Bop Dead City, among others. A proud Massachusetts native, she currently teaches English in the greater Boston area.
Landscape, Childhood City
Stars sink behind duplexes,
snow-worn streets,
press thin light
onto pavement.
Saxonville, I must leave you,
but tomorrow they will
hang themselves
over the dam
where we stare out
past darkened water,
stacks of brick,
and count strands
of smoke, rising.
Metal Shop
Three boys at the back
of metal shop—thin
beards, thin hands
swollen with veins.
They look and smell
like the ones I used to
fall in love with—
burnt iron and Old Spice.
The instructor, a silver-haired
model of his students,
holds a torch to a sheet
of steel. They watch flame
sear metal. One half,
still glowing with heat,
falls to cement
with a fistful of sparks.
The boys say nothing—
brief light fills their eyes.
