15 million
to buy them out
including mineral rights.
Only Happy
isn't smiling
knowing how lost they'd be
in a Brentwood townhouse
and not one of them equipped
to take on muggers, capital gains shelters,
dioxin in the fish. Imagine the trauma
each of their tiny air sacs is in for
its first time thudding up against
a second-stage alert.
Even in the country, where could they find
another valley as enchanted or unlogged?
As free from KKK friendship cook-outs
and jet fighter training flights?
Of course
black lung
may already be
whistling while they work.
Mike Carlin's poems have appeared in numerous small press magazines, including Bakunin, Onthebus and Pearl. He's led writing workshops at the L. A. County Museum of Art, in the schools and at the Pasadena Public Library where he directs the Emerging Urban Poets and Word Wrappers workshops. He recently won a fellowship to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Miami.