Centralia

The streets are cracked and caving in,
and it looks like a brimstone fault line,
but some of us will not leave, as this
is our town, a place without a zip code,
a town with one last church and not one
store, and the woods are kindling for a
wayward spark from a fire that seemingly
will never stop burning. The air is steam,
is sulfur, is rotting tires and rusted out
car parts in an above ground cemetary for
a town that was, a town that isn't—a coal
fire town held in eminent domain. Evicted
from the topography, and I will stay here
until my black lung shudders its last time
in quiet exhale, where the highway into
this ghost of a ghost town reads, "Welcome
to hell".