Glassworks Hot Room as Pentecostal Church, and: Another Sighting, and: Dirty Power, and: Piñon Time

GLASSWORKS HOT ROOM AS PENTECOSTAL CHURCH

Wheeling, West Virginia

In the hot room,while the finishing menshape glass with pucellasand shears, the snapper boy

tongs the gathers—jars,jugs, flasks, and bottles—into the glory hole,that they may reheat,

soften, be carried by himto the sweat-slick finishers,their necks and lips to beflared and grooved. He stares

into the glory-flames, dizziesand cries out: there's a hotroom in the flames, smallerthan his, but brighter, molten,

wavering, the finishers singingto the glass, and a bent boywith tongs, reaching for himas he sways.

ANOTHER SIGHTING

Mercers Bottom, West Virginia

When he sees a shadow veerin the sky, when my TV squeaksand whirs, when we can't sleep,we blame a bird-thing, a moth-man,a mutant crane said to have risenfrom the wooded area nearthe boarded-up dynamite planton Potters Creek Road.A lot of waste ponds out there,he tells me. Unlined pits, the army'schemical dumps. He points his fingerat me and grins. I could shoot it,he says. I'm tired of him, of this.If the crane looks into the pond—filmy, swirling with poisons—it must see a murky reflection,at best, a stranger it barely knows.In the morning, the toast burns.I cry out soul my soul, drowseat breakfast, go to the sinkand wash my eyes.

DIRTY POWER

We are being forced to bear the burden of dirty power for Nevada. –William Anderson, chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes

near the generating station

Coal ash they breathe, coal ashthey take in, coal ash in the water,in the air, bottom ash, fly ash,

boiler slag, from the residue ponds,from the too-full pits. Coal ashcomes when the wind blows wrong,

coal ash hazes over the travel plaza,glooms the fireworks tent, coal ashon the block houses, the children

sculpting an eagle float from wire,from tissue paper that the wind ripsand smears. Someone prays

for the turbines to be torn down,the smokestacks brought low,yuccas replanted, beavertail

and cholla fruiting after rain.Someone sees a field agleam,glass squares tilted for the gathering

of sun, the harvest of heat.

PIÑON TIME

And he walks all day with his family,up into the hills, for it is the time afterthe agave hearts and screwbeans,before the rabbit drive. And they campin the piñon groves. His boy looks forkindling while he chooses a ready tree.With a hooked pole, he grabs a limb,shakes and shakes as gold needlesfall on his girls, as cone scales,bark-bits, and resin-flecks landon their arms, faces, and hair.And they catch the cones in aprons,in burlap. And while his boy digs upthe hulling stones, his wife makes fire,cracks the cones, and browns the nutsin a willow tray of coals she turnsand turns. And they sleep in a wickiupof branches tied with yucca rope.And if a glittering lizard swallowsall their nuts while they dream,he will track the lizard, cut it open,and take back the nuts, if squirrels,if thieves—for it is the timeof green cones, and pine smoke,his family working under the trees,the brush of needles, coals sputtering,and the crack of flame.