Blood Money

Appalachia mountains

This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 10 No. 1, "Who Owns Appalachia?" Find more from that issue here.

This blood rolling down my arm

is from the wounds of a dollar bill

that cut my fingers as I touched it,

The blood runs down my elbows

and drips off into the sand.

Mr. Pittston is kicking dirt over it,

swearing

there are no names written

on that dollar bill.

 

All this is the result

of thinking too much

about a Law Suit

proving me of

“The Survival Syndrome”:

I get money

but none of the dead are resurrected.

 

— Gail V. Amburgey