Hi, Cally,
This is an evocative piece with strong opening lines and word music. It feels like you got to play as a writer, although strict conclusions about the content feel elusive. Spare and cryptic though it is, I might actually make it more spare (that is, I might trim it if it were mine).
What I wanted to mention--and this may very well be indicative of my limited time practicing form as someone who has primarily been a free-verser--is that I do have difficulty nailing down one meter. The best I could come up with is that this is an extra-coarse three beat accentual. But I cannot make every line fit that, for instance "When the cut steel and the tip stain." That said, it may be your intention to have the poem be metrically-inspired but not strictly metrical.
Good to read you here!
Deborah
|