Member Poem

Collecting Coal From Railroad Tracks

 

We drop them: fist-sized, black, matte--

in paper bags which soon grow weary 

of the task and begin to tear.  The coal 

waits patiently for us, happy to be useful 

 

again, not forgotten. The sun does what 

it can to make us go away. It wants these 

tracks for itself. It wants to bounce up 

and down metal straps today but our 

 

shadows block it. We find dense metal 

spikes, long-rusted, loosened by a thousand 

angry trains pounding, rushing, ignoring. 

The smells of old oil, grease, tar are heated 

 

and rise. They tang our noses and they call. Do 

you see how lovely we are?  Do you wonder 

where we've been? We do wonder.  We wonder 

very much. Telephone pole, telephone pole, 

 

telephone pole, Up and around the bend 

that hides the rest of the world. Cornflower 

chickory tags along beside the path, skips 

up ahead of us to see what's beyond...

First published in the Loyalhanna Review, 2016 issue