Sunday Morning, Cumberland Gap by A.E. Stringer published in Still, Summer 2015
Black cat appears under my roadside
picnic table. The Frame Shop is closed,
flags swaying. I walked here
from the next town through an old
railroad tunnel, two-step echo.
Raw rock walls overlook
the valley, as they have
since before the westward road.
Glaring quiet, no one leaves
the church; perhaps no one
went in.
A forties-era pickup sits behind
a white BMW. Passerby asks
if anything’s open. Bright. Green.
Catalpa tree.
Art show on a corner, then
back through the mountain
to my own time.
