Canticle for Centralia

I.

They buried the road 

in. 

The road, off the main 

road 

of sagging churches, 

porn 

stores with no windows, 

signs 

buzzing in the night. 

Now 

the town, the nothing 

creaks. 

A sunbeam catches 

snake 

skin on a bright hook, 

thin 

silver in the wind. 

Love 

is another 

hot day 

passed between 

the teeth 

of the chainsaw.

Run cold

water. Run it down

through 

my hair. All the sedge

grass 

gold under the blue

knife 

of day. The torn-up

clouds 

run away. They 

won’t 

come back.

II. 

They tried to bury 

the fire. It rose 

through each chamber 

of the mine, 

smoked through 

a hole in the yard. 

People ran away. 

I stay deep 

in the arms 

of thorns 

kneeling, one more 

sinner 

from Centralia. 

Sweetheart, 

they want to cut 

a hole in the mountain, 

fuck it. If I absorb this 

cancer, choked 

red marrow—be there 

like the snake doctor 

in the doorway, 

long shadow 

churning 

with copperheads. 

My sickness has one 

cure. Fall to your knees, the dirt 

we come from. Command

the river back from the dead.

Clare Welsh is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Pennsylvania. Her words and images have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review, and The Sun. She serves as an assistant editor of the newsprint zine Fine Print Paper. She is currently working on a book.