Mountaintop Removal
by Laura Lee Washburn
Think of it like liposuction,
running the 5K to build
up your leg strength
until you can do the half marathon.
On women, they say muffintop.
Either way, excess is the shame.
And don't waste, but recycle,
take the junk mineral left,
the dirt, stone, pine, oak, sage
and build a new coastline
in the stinking marsh.
Remember that woman
who died here, her jars hoarded
in the basement for the bad times.
Pickles and tomatoes, okra,
whatever she grew those last seasons
before the drought and aphids,
before that baby skinnied up
so bad she had to go off her mother's milk.
Before the war and before the wars,
we had a century just building up
to this tragedy of Earth, this
wasting. Dig straight down
we used to say, and you’ll end up
in China. Someone in a pointed
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