Pigeon Roost Chapel
By Joe Caldwell

Blasts consume
narrow hollows
drowning diesel
gear shifts.
Below rucked hills black dust petrifies
on clapboard siding,
wells go dry.
Under scraped mountain shelves,
the creek no longer
cups rain.
Beside gated land
oak limbs practice dying.
Now, even in moonlight
you can see the crack
spreading
across the plate
beneath the steeple’s face.