Beth

“Don’t look at him, Beth. He’s not –”

They couldn’t finish – words failed them.

Three weeks buried underground,

of course he couldn’t look right.

Folk know that when a mineshaft collapses

there’s no hope to be had down there

– god won’t ever delve this deep –

– men only confront the darkness

so they don’t die of cold and hunger –

It was already a miracle

they could get the bodies back

– thirteen good men,

buried, dug up – ironically

to be buried again, and

entombed – but more humanely,

with adequate decorum and 

the impression of an ending.

She stepped closer to the coffin,

his younger sister faltering in front

who looked inside – recoiled quickly –

starkly paler against her black veil

– as if she’d seen a ghost –

but no ghost, only brute reality.

Half his face was missing,

covered in a humble handkerchief,

the other half contorted,

the nerves on his neck – taut –

still gasping for air – ready to snap –

the scowl of death engraved.

The back of his hands all bruised

– he was missing fingernails too –

he must have known the earth

would eventually claim his life,

suffocate him, blind him, starve him

– he probably heard the others too,

muffled responses and moans –

and each in turn turning to silence,

listening to the sound of rocks

falling ever so minutely, tenderly,

as though tiny, whimsical atoms,

as if dallying back into place

because it was all meant to be.

Perhaps he spoke

of solitude to her

in the closed darkness,

spoke of love perhaps

in half-confessed words,

of regrets through gnashing teeth,

clenched fists and bleeding eyes,

thinking of the last time they talked.

The pallbearers in the slanting dawnlight

– shrouds of mist and breath alike

wrapping heads and necks like scarves –

hoisted the coffin down

in the consecrated ground

– so the living didn’t step on the dead –

thirteen good men lined up,

readied for the last repose,

hard-earned rest after the ordeal.

She was told she was the lucky one,

entrusted with the great mission

of fostering children on her own,

bearing a solitude that wasn’t hers,

– love goes on because life goes on –

– she wished, in that moment,

that the ground would open up

swallow everything and everyone

for them in time to become

the very coal they extracted,

died for, burnt to the core,

and buried its ashes, again.

Nothing opened up under her feet

but the vast, unforgiving expanse

of the years behind, the years ahead,

– the heartless toil without solace –

she loathed the dark soil where nothing grew,

which was taking more than it gave,

breeding children and desolation alike

– this sly, sleepless behemoth killing all –

– were not her husband about to dwell in

she would burn it, burn it all –