Coal Town
by Ryan Stone
Birds don't stop in this town.I see them fly past, black peppering
blue, going someplace. I've given up
dreaming wings. This town
will know my bones. Condoms
sell well in Joe's corner store—boredom breeds
but breeding's a trap, a twitch in the smile
of those steel-eyed shrews
who linger late after church.
I walked half a day, out past the salt flats,
after they closed the movie house down. Smoked
the joint she'd brought back from college
when she returned to bury my dad.
I remember how pale her fingers lay
across my father's hands—
coal miner's hands, tarred like his lungs;
like this town.
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