Mentos and Coke
They
lined
us
up
in
striped
lawn
chairs
to watch the fire work show. O
l a o a
“Cheers! Have a beer! Let the bubbles f t and f m about like this
mushroom
cloud,
hanging above
your heads,
infiltrating your tissues
your cells your breasts your testes your chests your blood
your kids in Nye County
(My County)
destructed by dysfunction, unknowingly gone mutant,
lack of reproduction—
hidethissendthisdumpthis, all of it
on Yucca YucKa Mountain,
and later, we promise to send you compen$ation.”
The explosions were pretty, really, in their entirety
and devastation, and afterward we packed up our children,
our chairs,
our beers, our coolers.
We watched as officials left in bland-tan trucks and shit-green cars—
the tall, turned backbones of a nation.
—Nichole Rued, Wisconsin Rapids, WI
