The Stucco fence

 The Stucco Fence 

John Clare Stokes

In innocence where once they leaned

to steal their first kiss deep beneath

their feet a rumbling earth gave rise to

coal to warm the homes upon the steep

holler steps the old Orander buses rusting

beside the narrow road that carried the

fathers and the brothers far within the

Crumpler mountains returning to the shrill

whistle of shifts ending unrecognizable in sooted faces

a mass of one shuffling men all laboring

below while above in white snow lingered

two near the stucco fence that kept them

separated, daring never to cross for 

mother Ethel saw it all from her upstairs room

the daily coming and the going of who

was returning from Northfork and who was

going to Bluefield even down to hearing

the soft purring in the cellar dank, Black Daisy lapping

the milk stolen from the ice box while

Ethel ironed the bus mans uniforms over

looking the first generation of the Italian

family in search of a dream within the

coal seams and steal perchance their

own first kiss to start a family living in

the yellow company home and if by hard

labor they saved up enough script they

too could move up the holler into a

house of blue where from their upstairs

windows they could count the coming and

the going who was meeting who by the

yellow stucco fences below to steal their

daughters away, far away from the 

separation of their fences, far from the

rumblings deep beneath their trembling feet.