by Narmadhaa Sivaraja
Grandpa Carlo
The steep walls of our little holler funnel everything together at
the bottom, all the man – made structures, together, smooshed
up tight. Grandpa Carlo’s house sits aside the company store,
which sits aside the church, which sits aside the cemetery,
which sits aside the entrance to the Green Creek Mines. For
thirty – seven years, Grandpa Carlo scraped a pick and shovel
across the coal face of Green Creek Number Eight. On the
day he stopped for good he said, Most fellers go only six foot
underground. And only wuncet. I went down six hunnert. And I went
down ever day. I never understood how a sane man could stand
it, two scores of toil knowing that dead bodies rotted just over
your head. That vision made me shiver even more this
morning when I learned Green Creek had another cave in. How
will they tell them apart? I asked Grandpa. Which are the old dead
bodies? Which are the new?
Flavian Mark Lupinetti, a poet, fiction writer, and cardiac surgeon, received his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in About Place, Barrelhouse, Bellevue Literary Review, Briar Cliff Review, Cutthroat, Flint Hills Review, Sport Literate, and ZYZZYVA. Mark lives in New Mexico.
Narmadhaa Sivaraja is a nature and haiku fanatic who draws inspiration from photographs. See more of her work on The Chaos Within.