Hard-scrabble.
Like lettuce grown in rocks
Just to get kilt-down
And eaten.

Hard-scrabble,
Like a baby drinking Mountain Dew
Right in front of Diane Sawyer,
Daring her to say a word.

Hard-scrabble.
Like lungs that grow hard and black
As the coal in the mountains
They come from

Bone of my bone,
Flesh of my flesh.
Death becomes us 
As we become it.

It isn’t morbid.
Don’t be sad. 
It’s just the way 
of things.