Worst Hanford tank may be leaking into soil

[Generic Other]

27. Company Town -- I had this published a few years ago

Company Town

Along this stretch of river,
silence never lifts.
Boarded up houses with “for sale” signs
line the edge of town,
out past the Atomic Autowrecker’s
tangle of rust, chrome, broken windshields,
and blackberry vines.

Downwind, nothing moves.
Not many secrets remain buried either;
the rotten past bubbles up
through floorboards,
sloughs off walls,
oozes into the river.

They say scientists once spun starglass here,
nothing left now but the ticking of geiger counters
and the certainty that someone will be taking a reading on you soon

Seems everyone in town knows
the old guy who worked at the plant forty
years, never had an accident,
smoked five packs of marlboros
every day, ate lard on toast, pissed
out gutloads of beer,
drove ten miles in his pickup to the plant
along this road every damned day,
window rolled down, dust blowing
in off the arid reach.
He was the oldest man in town
when he died. Outlived a whole lot of people.

Didn't hurt him any.

Even outlived his kid--the one with the
thyroid. No one knew what was wrong.
A long time ago before they had names
for that kind of stuff. Could
have been in the milk, they said.

Afterwards, his wife got all wore down,
bone tired long before no doubt;
she caught a bus heading west. Never came back.
His neighbor ran off too.

That’s when the first ones went on medical disability.
One of the plant managers
blamed carelessness. Company doctor wouldn’t
say, but everyone else knew it was cancer.
They died in pieces, one inch at a time, in those days.

How many?

No one dares keep score in a company town
where the high school jocks wear
atomic mushroom clouds on
their letterman’s jackets, and everyone
knows someone they like who works over there.

the women work elsewhere if they are
still young enough to want more babies.

In a company town like this, everyone
is strictly non-essential personnel,
sniffed and x-rayed everyday before
they get off work. They carry the weight
of spent fuel rods
like deadly suppositories. You can hear their terrified footsteps
echo as they pass through scanners, past
machine gun armed security, you can hear their shoes click
against cement as they punch a timeclock
ticking to meltdown.