Coal
By Kerry James Evans
By now, I know better
than to run my mouth around my cousins
who wake every day in a place
called Pig-Shit Alley,
who descend a mile-deep
shaft for black lung
and a disappearing pension.
We all get taken,
sure, but who takes from a widow?
Who drinks the well’s last
dregs, the backwash,
the swallowed, the spit-back
and forgotten? What help
is there for the woman
who’s lost every man
she’s ever loved to a company
she’s never seen?
Click, click, go the numbers
on the dial. Click, click,
go the executive’s Florsheims
into the never-ending
expanse of industry
spackled over with marble and stained oak—
a boardroom painted canary yellow.
Truth is hard to find,
especially when all you’ve got
is a headlamp and a pick.
But the lights—they do flicker.
They shine like hell
until they finally burn out.
Kerry James Evans is the author of Bangalore (Copper Canyon). He currently lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. See also www.kerryjamesevans.com
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