Down at Mullens every porch has a puffed couch
or wooden rockers where locals sit for a spell
watching gravel trucks rumble on past
Coal Country Bar and Grill, always crammed
with gawking tourists who rent Airbnbs
near Hatfield–McCoy Trail for more per night
than sun-beaten Dollar General clerks earn
in two shifts shelving cheap household goods.
Down at Mullens the flood of 2001 warshed out
the county hospital where the same doctor twice
stitched up Uncle Vinny after drunken Daddy
threw a rock and broke a bottle over his head.
For Rent signs hang in dusty storefront windows,
while freshly mortared churches and the Wyco,
deliver clapboard hope to a lonely valley.
Down at Mullens Mamaw bought two crusty ham hocks
for soup beans at Wayne’s Galaxy Market, now an IGA
owned by folks who own all the coalfield grocers.
We sat in Dairy Queen and swallowed our burgers
and swirly ice cream and she told me when Daddy
was up for parole, then we perused Family Dollar
for a DVD to pair with tomorrow’s soup beans.
Skyler Lambert grew up in the coal camp of Besoco, West Virginia. His writing is published or forthcoming in Appalachian Journal, riverSedge, Meat for Tea, and Hedge Apple. Skyler’s memoir-in-progress investigates two murders and explores the multitudes of the human condition. He shares a home with his partner, a cattle dog, and two black cats.
**Featured image credit: Houses in Besoco, West Virginia, 1974 by Jack Corn – EPA, NARA #556578 – Wikimedia pub dom