- Acid Rain
my mother says don't eat the snowand walk home with your keys like this
recycled sticky uncleansedcontaminants syringed for the next generation
acid rain breaches someone else's scalpchemical runoff in Beltzville Lake
acid rain much like the boyfriendwho Chryslers home on holidays
knows how to faux conservative chiclicks potatoes off the whisk makes everyone canned laughter
acid rain never announces itselfis all honey I don't see what you're talking about
shadows siphoned into men outside the tobacco shopno whistle just watching
cycled like my father ladles my motherinto his graze jokes about having a wife
a right to his new lessonsat the Rod & Gun Club on weekends
all the things you don't want to seecan disappear clear fluid in a stream nobody knows
my feet slimy in undercurrent bikini gluedto my chest by littered water pecked through [End Page 149]
with plastic everything I push downalways comes back upstream
follow each current to its clandestine disposala truck-bled frack site
untraceable droplets eddied to menin cedar boardrooms of highway hotels
non-disclosure agreements greasing fingerprintsinto loopholes like lassos these men
such men grabbing even waterby the profit [End Page 150]
Amanda Hodes is a writer and sound artist. Her writing has appeared in Denver Quarterly, PANK, West Branch, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported and/or exhibited by the Banff Centre, Target Gallery, Arts Club of Washington, Sound Scene Festival, Koster Foundation, AUDIRE, and other venues. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and is currently an MFA candidate at Virginia Tech.