Sunday Morning, Cumberland Gap by A.E. Stringer

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.