Anthracite Country

The culm dump burns all night,

unnaturally blue, and well below heaven.

It smolders like moments almost forgotten,

the time when you said what you meant

too plainly and ruined your chance of love.

Refusing to dwindle, fed from within

like men rejected for nothing specific,

it lingers at the edge of town, unwatched

by anyone living near. The smell now

passes for nature. It would be missed.

Rich earth-wound, glimmering

rubble of an age when men

dug marrow from the land’s dark spine,

it resists all healing.

Its luminous hump cries comfortable pain.