Blast

by Ken Ashworth
The Waters
Second Place, January 2020
Judged by R.T. Castleberry


Lightning struck the quarry
set off the pre-charges.

All day they worked with hammer
drills packing the Dyno Nobel,

By the same folks who give
out the Peace Prize.

They quit when it started
to thunder and couldn’t finish

before dark. ATF called it
spontaneous electric initiation.

Lonnie at Penrose Grocery
came in at 5 next morning,

swept glass into a pile and gravel
for the pot holes into another.

The good folks of Turkey Creek
Missionary Baptist said

it was a Miracle it happened
at night else they all could have

been raptured by spontaneous
initiation, Hellish smell of ozone

and blasting powder, pieces
of the steeple in trees.


Sardonic, low key jab at small town working class/religious life. --R.T. Castleberry