the coal miner ghosts are still digging

i go to join them. no pix axe or shovel
just our bloodied hands. the mountain
like a sick beast. she spits her eyes out
in bursts of color. i tell the other workers
that there is a flock of birds just beneath
the surface. we work to free them.
there are no birds. instead, there are
remains. pressed angels. wings of
old species. black pupil stones. i want 
to lie to them & tell them to rest.
tell them that we can just let the mountain
swallow us. glass candy people. sun outside 
soupy sky bobbing like a buoy.
they dream of an ending of the vein.
one last rock removed. curing the hills.
nothing left to take. i too have been
in the endless way. a rotten belief that
the work will save you. as if salvation 
has ever been about removal. they come 
& tell us, "just a little more." i think i hear
the birds singing. not the canary
but the blue bird with the peach-red chest.
the trees outside our heads. blossoms 
we give our lovers. i tell the miners
we could run away all together.
if we left together, what would they 
be able to do to us? they do not want
to leave. they are afraid even dead. 
even hundreds of years after the mine
has been closed. after bears have
made makeshift caves of the wounds.
then, still after they've been filled in
with rubble. a scar is a place of abandonment.
if you are lucky, of an escape.