“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 –
