One of my poems appears in the recently released edition of Flint Hills Review. Normally, the annual issue is released during the summer; the recent issue was delayed because of moving the offices at Emporia State University, among other things.
"A Seam of Coal," my poem, references Northern Ireland, particularly Belfast, where my mother was born and raised, and where my family often returned for visits when I was younger. The Short Strand is a working class section of Belfast. USDB, by the way, is an abbreviation for the United States Disciplinary Barracks, aka military prison, located at Fort Leavenworth. I taught a writing class there one semester ten or more years ago.
Because the picture is hard to read, I am adding another copy of the poem.
Leavenworth, Kansas
Every few minutes
the horns of the coal trains hauling
empty hoppers to Wyoming interrupt
a Saturday night. My computer digests
what appears on my screen
thanks to the plant matter from millions
of years ago. The smell from coal fires
reminds me of the smoke-filled air of Belfast
that greeted us when our ferry entered the lough.
My grandfather once shouldered bags of coal
he delivered to the row houses of the Short Strand.
My sister and I brought in a bucketful
for our aunt and sat in front of the fireplace,
rubbing in its heat. One uncle, not having
a hot water heater, kept a fire burning
through the year, his own Burning Mountain.
What punctuates my night offers hope
to the inmates of the USDB, their prison
located next to the train tracks. They dream
of clutching the ladder at the end of a hopper
and, despite their freezing in the January air,
jumping off somewhere in Nebraska.
