Tovah Strong

O

Also craters

Oh so crack crevice

Over silence later torn taut by double plated doors

Hours | hours left after the echo | after repeat | ore open mouth ore yellow cake or flash

Our sour clocks froze | dust froze | hours and lungs | lungs remember particles sky slap shower | the show goes on for a core | hot hell july | plastic molten sand | green trinitite

Or barrels | barrels | sallow elbows | lungs barking | barking any area within or any area may contain radioactive material past this point is not really past this point | the point continues on | the wind heads downwind | people forget people were here | i know though i was not here to remember | my parents were not here | people are here | signs still hang on chain link fences

So crouch museums | a museum sits near a forest across town from a laboratory where death grew rounds trailing wires | later hung from a plane | multiple planes | horror | death rounds multiply carried south leave gloves inside barrels inside gray canisters hauled by trucks marching southwest | so the news | the news is there was | there is | there has been a spill | there has been an accident | there was an incident again | so a museum grows beside mirrorlike moonlight bright sand reflecting every sunset back into the sky | cement sinks into the ground | a tourist posts photos of an embroidered patch with a missile flying above white sand photographed above a sand dune beside a woman in a sunhat shaded sundress stretched out in the distance | missile replicas spike sky

Obsolete abandoned leftovers leak | reports say the state could be more productive | the people are familiar with acronyms | the [NAME] knows how to clean up | the [NAME] will not be held liable | the [NAME] writes manuals | the people know ‘non-credible events’ | the people know where hospitals crouch | the [NAME] will retain numbers on speed-dial | the [NAME]’s numbers on dial will include the state | the state will not have the [NAME] on speed dial

An incident is mostly an incident | the [NAME] will not be held liable beyond manufacturing reasoning | a ‘non-credible event’ is mostly an event | the [NAME] is non-credible during a ‘non-credible event’ | the [NAME] will call the fire-truck trained for ‘non-credible events’ | the name will call [NAME] who will call [NAME] | the state will call

The [NAME] will build a museum for [REDACTED] | the [NAME] will publish accolades | the [NAME] will ignore yellow cake ore seep | the [NAME] will or will not know a past [NAME]’s map of barreled wastes | the [NAME] will or will not know the boy whose ankles melted | the [NAME] will or will not know multiple phrases for rain | the [NAME] utters ‘economic improvement’

A job might be a job to sallow elbows a map is a map there is cancer on a map an account of incidents | non-credible events equal reliably unexpected

A barrel is a barrel is a canister is a cavern is a container is a container until a container is not

A canister is a barrel is a transport object is a container with a lifespan limited echo

A canyon & a cavern hold echoes a cavern holds gray canisters

A museum will be built

So [REDACTED] makes circles

Tailings tailing leavings

Repetition circle

Also

Radius

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Bio

Tovah Strong grew up in New Mexico. She holds an MFA from Randolph College and a BFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. A recipient of the Glascock Poetry Prize, thier work is forthcoming in Rocky Mountains Literary Field Guide and TIMBER Journal and has previously appeared in Terrain.org, Chapter House Journal, and elsewhere.