-behind the fence in Vinton County-

the first family arrives at 10:55 PM.

the pickup truck slows rapidly from its speed,

the dust of Powder Plant Road behind it settles to the ground.

the driver pulls over to the shoulder leaving space

for the others he knows will surely come here.

another family arrives within minutes.

those waiting at the fence can see them coming.

now the third family comes, then the sixth family and so on through the night.

they line the fence as if witnessing a stalled cortège. 

Into the distance beyond the fence, there isn’t much to see.

not even the smoke still rising, but the skies

above the dark facility are a heavy, blood-red at sunup.

there’s something wrong with the air,––
the pungent residue in spent nitroglycerin.

they shuffle left and right along the fence allowing for newcomers.

there’s nothing to see of the grounds but flashing lights.

the multi-blast shockwaves shook the foundations of their homes,

the walls of their trailers, the bones of their backyard dogs.

then the howling siren, droning, fatal, one pitch is enough,

sends them driving hard through McArthur, Ohio

and there at the fence they wait in a solemn row.

nobody on the outside gets in.

nobody from the inside is allowed to get out.

an official count of the living is in process.

the dead will wait to be identified.
but these are not the recognizable dead,
those we've come to know laying neatly in the parlors.

these dead are the “Powder Plant” dead, identified

through the process of examination, of science, of piecemeal pathology.

but first, the living are counted, myself among them and from the count

will come the “unaccounted for” who are then presumed to be dead

and presumptions such as these are never wrong.

Austin Powder Company