until you’re above them, one curvaceous

silhouette lingering alongside the other.

No way to divine coal in the mountains

until you dig into them—first full trains,

then rust-empty trestles, a stinking river.

Trucks with Friends of Coal bumper stickers

tucked haphazardly beside trailers nuzzled

to the hill like napping seeds, waiting for

the second coming, a paycheck, the good old days

to be good again, an easy ghost-lie, a fine mist

curling off the mountains when the rain lets up.

The only coal here is hymn-empty,

a cough coming from the T.V. room,

roads sleeping like a bed of copperheads.

No way to tell my family this is pride

wrinkled into shame, believing we can still

build love in the dark, after everything burns.