Only God Should Move Mountains

ElisabethHarrahy

It started with a smell, sweet as black licorice, that seeped into the air, made her dizzy as she filled the cast iron tub for her son the water running brown and blurry

Each day, more hair down the drain, more neighbors without gallbladders without ovaries ripe with eggs because the water was poisoned with slurry injected into the ground

Coal slurry from a mountaintop mining operation that left nothing but the dirt laid bare and an area flat enough for a Walmart

Where there used to be a mountain and acres of trees, rhododendron, wild ginseng, ferns and black cohosh there is nothing, nothing but ugliness

Now she gets her water from volunteers who show up at the church each week, pours it by the bottle into a pot on the stove and bathes her son while he stands, before tucking him into bed

She sits and smokes on the stoop of the house she cannot sell, tries to follow the call of crickets in the dark, but is halted by the rumble of another coal truck passing through

The young man across the street is dying, his kidneys shutting down

She recalls her recent visit to see him, how his mom kept him tucked beneath a flowered sheet on the couch, how he turned to stare out the window as the morphine dripped into his arm

He used to be one of the tough boys beat up her younger brother once now she just feels bad for him laying there like that, all gentle and still

Stripped of his might like the mountain and soon to become valley fill

Elisabeth Harrahy’s work has appeared in Zone 3, Constellations, The Café Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Passengers Journal, Ghost City Review, I-70 Review and elsewhere, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. She received an Editor’s Choice Award in the Paterson Literary Review’s 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest. She is an associate professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

The cat’s out of the bag. The bag’s out of the cat. What difference does it make? And if you knew, for certain, Who would truly be the wiser? All hell’s broken loose, again, Yet no one has any idea what to do. I imagine we’ll shrug our shoulders Discuss the usual business As if nothing has taken place. It’s merely how it is here. Small towns tend to be like this; At least, where we call home.

But, then, I’m deathly afraid, There’s the matter of the cat Not to mention the inglorious bag, And who gave birth to whom. Kind of like the chicken/egg thing, If you sit down, stretch a bit, And think long and hard about it A pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Still, a dilemma is a dilemma, Regardless of the initial offering. What appears to be a breakfast snack, Remains another soul’s dinner in disguise. I guess it just shows to go: Prepare an escape plan, Whenever the possibility exists.

If you’re searching for solace, You won’t find it here. Try the local liquor store, The dry cleaners on the corner, Or the understaffed post office Pregnant with dead letters galore, And holiday greeting cards. Please, don’t pay me a visit. I’m thoroughly up to my ears, Eyes, nose, mouth, and throat, Digesting what woe remains. Tell your sob stories to the priests At the Church of the Good Shepherd; After all, it’s their holy business. Leave me to my flatulent dog, Ungrateful kids, and irritable wife. I endure their constant demands Our dear family, such that we are. As concerns the rest of you, Seek peace where it resides. Just keep your distance from me.

Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Red Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Red Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Red Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Red Hen Press), and Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks. He lives in Pasadena, California.