Diana Rosen

Uniontown, Pennsylvania

Strike time. Row after row
of coal miners sit around
the decaying projects, oblivious
to peeling paint, crumbling bricks,

talk how tunneling left them bent,
blackened, bitter. The begrudged
fifteen-cent raise the union negotiates
won’t cover lost wages, scrip owed

for bread and bones. Play football,
join the Army, they beg their sons,
anything but mine-dark days
that end with nothing, nothing at all

CP

Diana Rosen's poetry has appeared in the anthologies Kiss Me Goodnight, Those Who Can....Teach, and Bold Ink plus the journals Lucidity, convolvulus, and RATTLE, among others.