Furnace
Rust-splotched, thin-walled, coal-pocked, It sat hulled to the cellar floor, a leviathan of cinder and metal. We did not believe it could speak, though we goaded and warded and goaded friends into sticking their heads in its open mouth, as if its jaws would clamp down, clench shut like a turtle's, and though it unmovable the day two men from Mohrfield Oil winched and pulleyed and heaved it from its moorings. More like excuses for muscle than gods, though the house shook and buckled and swayed when they hauled it out the door. Four of us huddled on red steps. Our mother upstairs, the crow's nest of her bedroom, yelling directions, though we could not hear them, so would not follow and chased after the back of the flatbed, waving good-bye, its black mouth agape, hinged, singing.