"Steel Ethereal"
by Alexander Baker
That city’s teams make plays like ivy scales brick
and steel beams weigh
Like light shimmers across glass inbound day after day
Cut through the air carrying fortress spirit
Many veins bridging rivers, these great arteries lay
Like a kaleidoscopic no-hitter
Like coal in windowpanes still glitter
This salt of the earth won’t quit
All collar powerhouse hustle and slay
Burial ground soil, earth’s lifeblood in toil
A calendar ends, new narratives spin
A city dropped off in the hills and the rivers
The Paris of Appalachia, its mystique delivers
That sultry lover and vortex undercover
Gravitational pull unlike any other
This fourth river ensouled
Wraps you up below and above her
[ Artwork by James Gyre ]