Coal Act (1969)

Dawn Potter

For instance:

If a miner is suffering [e.g., Employees 1 & 4]

or suffered [e.g., Employees 2 & 3]

from a chronic dust disease of the lung

which (A),

when diagnosed by chest roentgenogram [Employee 1],

yields one or more large opacities

(greater than one centimeter in diameter)

and would be classified

in category a, b, or c

of the International Classification

of Radiographs of the Pneumoconioses

by the International Labor Organization,

(B) when diagnosed by biopsy [Employee 2]

or autopsy [Employee 3],

yields massive lesions in or on the lung,

or (C) when diagnosis is made by other means

[e.g., Employee 4 hacks up black spittle

and struggles to breathe

during hobbles to the mailbox],

would be a condition

which could reasonably be expected

to yield results described

in clause (A) or (B)

if diagnosis had been made

in the manner prescribed

in clause (A) or (B)

[though Employee 4 should have got off his ass

and fetched up a doctor’s certificate],

then there shall be an irrebuttable presumption

that he [Employee 1] is totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis

or that his death was due to pneumoconiosis [Employee 3]

or that at the time of his death

he was totally disabled by pneumoconiosis [Employee 2,

but Employee 4 says, “I ain’t going up to Pittsburgh

just to spit and get talked at, if they want me

they can take me out a here on a plank,

I know a thing or two about bosses

and their goddamn lawyer talk,

ain’t nobody can pull wool over my eyes,

I’ve heard, up to Pittsburgh, soon’s you walk in,

a nurse sticks a needle in your arm,

then two three days later

you get sent home in a coffin, God’s truth

them doctors is only in it for the money,

I ain’t going nowheres near ’em,

I’m a stay right here

and listen to that Puerto Rican kid

hammer the ball out of the park,

he’s the only kind of Pittsburgh I care for”],

as the case may be.

[first published in the Bellevue Literary Review (fall 2013)]