for Sydna

Winds herd grasses, blades
hissing back harassment,
 
harassment with their stem
tongues. Tungsten comes from
 
Swedish for heavy stone and
the element known as wolfram
 
when miners first noticed
on the surface of tin melt
 
a foam that devoured yield.
My daughter wears a ring
 
of tungsten carbide, bright
but brittle. Hear me:
 
When she posts photos from
DC protests, I’m an ocean
 
of mothers. The sky burns
with pride and stings of
 
menace. There’s more
risk in ordinary language
 
than a Cold War of
kinetic bombardment
 
could avert. Every
incandescence illuminates
 
a barricade, etches each
her monument, a moment
 
in stone. Heavens, deliver
to these devouts sureties
 
of unsheathed light. See,
I found a recipe
 
for freedom. It calls
for a pinch of slag
 
to bolster the tongue,
an acidic dash, dredged
 
soot, heaps of frothing
waves, more wolf.