“In the Gem Mine Capital of the World,” by Rose McLarney (Poetry ’10)

“In the Gem Mine Capital of the World,” a poem by poetry graduate Rose McLarney, was recently featured in the Cortland Review. Read an excerpt below:

In the Gem Mine Capital of the World

In the Gem Mine Capital of the World,
stands lined the roads, selling buckets of red dirt

for visitors to sift through, wash on screens,
sloshing and staining their fingers and clothes,
lifting out stones.

The town’s title was repeated
by billboards every few feet of highway.

This was home, familiar to me.
So I passed by the superlative claim
without thought of distinction or singularity.

The name meant nowhere else were there more
mines of this kind, inviting you to
bring a bag lunch, vending drinks and sunscreen.

Not that the land, or its miners’ futures,
held much wealth.

Read the poem in its entirety here: http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/85/mclarney.php