Mice in the Coal Fields

by Al Ortolani

 
The office car is abandoned
on a spur of railroad track. It is filled
with dust and gray sunlight. Some windows
are locked in their final shutting,
others broken or riveted with .22 caliber holes.
The door hangs on a single hinge, jamb split,
shattered by vandals. The mining company,
long gone under, has stripped the pastures of the coal
that lay soft and bituminous in its belly.
Bills of sale, receipts, orders indecipherable
litter the floor, catch the breeze, flutter like birds.
The miners who made the transition
from deep shaft to strip mining
drew small pensions or moved on to more
promising veins. Mice run the floorboards,
stuffing file cabinets with fescue, bits of letterhead,
mimeographed paperwork. Even in triplicate
commerce is consumed by mildew, by rough
bark dogwood, by switchgrass. The end
of each workday brings more loose shale.
Overhead a turkey buzzard circles, feathers
like piano keys fingered by wind.