Today’s Poem

Underground Ethnography

Reporting from the Earth’s core
I come to you tonight live. I’ve searched
for drinking songs among the men
down here and found none. Not one
note hovering above a bottles mouth,
nor has any man attempted tremolo
in-between the falling of canaries.
Living in their quarters, I can attest
to the horrors, the heat, and longing
for home. Years ago an old man
in a new suit told these boys
that the beautiful virgins were fed
to the volcanoes above, they could
be found here and taken back.

-Jason Braun