Ghost Veins

By the broken wall they fed

the chipmunks and listened

to the last train leave St. Almo.

It was too late in the year

to expect any tourists,

too early in life to give up.

On the porch of their general store

she cradled a rifle while her brother

boarded up the windows for winter.

The telegraph lines she used to operate

muttered in the wind, empty messages

for the last two in St. Almo.

The shadow of the mountains

grew colder that year. The men

who wrung money from the mountains

walked away, leaving the Brown Trout

in the silver veins of the streams

around St. Almo.

From the porch they threw the last

of the seeds on the ground

and shut the door. The sun

settled behind the Sawatches

and left golden streaks

for the last two in St. Almo.

First published in 2011 in The Ivy Leaves Journal of Literature and Art, vol. 85, p. 13.