Close

Morgantown, West Virginia

Amy M. Alvarez | Poetry

The neighborhood Wi-Fi network list runs from FuckPad to Xfinity.
Across the street, a dog won’t stop barking. It’s cold and he whines

like a whimpering child. Maybe it’s the sound of the train whistle
that upsets him. We’re far from needing the warning in this bed

that smells of fabric softener and the soft pepper of cats. Trains
carry the coal that brings back the money that state politicians

will use to gussy up the now-flooded golf course and resort they
frequent, to hire some university professor with dusty books she

can’t part with, even after four states. Little is spent on miners’
black lung, on their shattered children, the tracks on their arms

forming maps of constellations they’d like to become someday.