Ironed Shadows
by Odin Roark

Her hands lay smooth
the coveralls worn thin
now wrinkled
once charged with earth

Mended armor from
courageous prices paid
embossed with crosshatched mending
stands raised in triumph

A home plate remembered
by innocence long abandoned
players made humble from
a boy's first slide for life

Vapors rise
from sprinkled droplets of water
beneath handled hot steel
making ready once more
the crusted wafer-thin reason
for kneeling to non-questioned answers

Facing coerced submission to other games
a purple-robed relentless hand
feeds rewards from gilded plate
accompanied by whispering silver tongue

Such are the scoring points of yet another kind

Youth's pure white
once starched crisp
ever ready for combat
now labors thread bare
atop shoulders and arms
riding the reach for caramel-lathered memories
chased down with silver chaliced promises from still wider mouths

Where goes the love-smooth ironing hand now?

Costumes of rumpled thread
made anew by hot-pressed caresses
now like the ether of memory
drift up past the seeing eyes into untethered emptiness

Tread carefully
lest you become wrinkle-free expediency
sliding voraciously into digital home plates
forever kneeling faithfully before promised obsolescent rewards
delivered smilingly from reflective platters
tarnishing quickly