He died at thirty-three, a coal mine
death. It tore a hole in his heart,
says the oral history, its tunneled line
recording earth-tinted eyes, part
of him that became part of me.
Our family had land, a flat cliff
where cousins played, its face weeping
in heavy storms for men lost in rifts
of rock. We wrote our names on stone
graves, tracing hands in colored pencil
until rain swelled, washing blank as bone
all we’d made, brief prints and stencils
melted into chasms, as clouds fell in place
and the waters rose and erased us.