People gather in the parking lot<\/p>\n
beside their rented automobiles,<\/p>\n
staring past the pit’s edge, straining<\/p>\n
to catch glimpses of the bottom.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tourists pull over, slam<\/p>\n
their vehicles into \u201cpark\u201d,<\/p>\n
and run towards the hole.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s it!\u201d one of them cries,<\/p>\n
reaching into their purse or pocket<\/p>\n
for a camera. The abyss starts wide,<\/p>\n
then becomes steadily narrower,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
each scoop towards the bottom<\/p>\n
greedier than the last, like somebody<\/p>\n
dug for extra bites of ice cream<\/p>\n
until the tub ran empty,<\/p>\n
and no one can lick it clean anymore.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When the copper was gone,<\/p>\n
miners packed up and left town,<\/p>\n
penniless, health shot forever,<\/p>\n
but no one wants to remember that.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t sell postcards, or<\/p>\n
put money in merchants’ pockets.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Each night after the bars shut down,<\/p>\n
patrons head someplace new<\/p>\n
for an after-hours party.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maybe they can extract one more drop<\/p>\n
from an otherwise depleted evening.<\/p>\n
Maybe they can stay above the pit,<\/p>\n
long enough to avoid looking at the bottom.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People gather in the parking lot beside their rented automobiles, staring past the pit’s edge, straining to catch glimpses of the bottom. Tourists pull over, slam their vehicles into \u201cpark\u201d, and run towards the hole. \u201cThat\u2019s it!\u201d one of them cries, reaching into…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132230"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144938,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132230\/revisions\/144938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}