Iron Oxide

I went out back to find the watering can,

thinking I’d save what’s left of the mint.

But the yard has become a scrapyard of sorts,

full of things I meant to fix but didn’t.

The bucket is galvanized, or used to be,

but the silver has surrendered to the rain.

There’s a deep orange crust at the seams

like a scab that won't ever stop stinging.

When I grabbed the handle, it bit my palm,

leaving a flake of rust embedded in the skin.

I looked at the stain and I looked at my hands,

and I wondered when the weathering began.

It’s a slow kind of rot, the honest kind,

not a fire, just a gradual loss of shine.

I put the bucket down in the tall, wet grass

and let it keep turning into something else.