From a Journal: Dooker's Hollow

David Koehn

Permafrost Chapbook Contest Winner

From A Journal: Dooker's Hollow

They call me hunky in the Furnace A. My window frames the Mala Fana resting On the charred hill, nesting on my sill Like an idle armadillo curled in sleep. Carnegie shipped its two five-ton converters From Little Bay de Noc to Port Donora. Nearby, the railers watch the rolling-mill Spit out the bundled bales ofblackened rails, The derrick bludgeoning the hoary dusk. In the gorge the barren storage-sheds leak barley Down forty-five degree back yards on Falkon, To Halket's row of shacks and bow-legged houses On Pinksy Avenue. On Cherry Alley We pass the Mason jar of muscatel. One year ago, near here, they buried Tom (My fingers slid the boiled skin from his cheek Like a wet label off a liquor bottle), On November 3, 1851. I think what I like, but try to keep my mouth shut.

Plaid shirts and bowler caps-the men and women Curl in the sucking mud on mattress skeletons, The wire as rusted and charred as the wellhead's lever. Or they kneel by the smoldering anthracite, the coals As luminescent as chrysanthemums. The glowing petals of sycamore ash diffuse

Above the bicycle rims and cinder barrels. Mary steps past a busted cot to place The grass-green perch, copper-scaled carp, and chubs On the the iron grate. The starved gills hissing smoke. Inhaling butter and scallions, I'm reminded Of what a paradise the hollow is, Or what a paradise it can become. Mary slides into the conversation: Micha is hacking up her katar again, Why haven't you told her? Tell her. Tell her Boiling the river water will not help.