What were the ovens?
A miner hands grabbed a pastry at lunch.
The black dust made a dead black space
on the breaded handle. He put his dusty
lips to the crust, his cartwheeling teeth
sank their way into the salted meat.
In five minutes he was done.
In his first five minutes back at work
he dislodged the fragment of coal
that would fire away the lives
and then lifted
his tool across his body
and swiftly dislodged more,
doing so he breathed in dust.
Where everyone makes a sum
On the trail-ways to the body,
the sun rises sideways,
a fire above the pink road.
Where everyone makes a sum
On the system of death,
we become less a people
and more a thing.
What baby born looks
Into its mother’s eyes
And forecloses on its demise?
Who tells a child-we need
You to die, you must protect
Us, you are the seed
To a new life,
a seed we
send to die.
