IRON OVERLOAD

(For my mother, Roberta Crawford)

Most people dying from iron overload
never hear the tick of the clock,

or tiny church bells
rattling the rafters of the brain.

As iron settles into the heart, pancreas and liver,
carefully unfolding death’s warm quilt, needlessly,

hardly anyone dying from iron overload
hears each tick of the clock

or tiny church bells
rattling the dusty rafters of the brain.

As killer iron, like Genghis Khan, ravages the body,
rusting livers, brains and hearts,

an icy chill eases beneath death’s warm quilt,
needlessly, needlessly, needlessly.

by Alan Britt