on record. we’ve heard
it before, the hottest ____
on record. just fill in the
revolving blank.
hail mary, full of grace
ravenous wildfires. floods.
look! here’s video, a camper
van floating the pigeon river;
that’s novel, unique.
pray for us sinners
until it’s not. and it’s
not. furniture by the
curbside, blessed by mud,
baptized in contaminated
water.
now and at the hour
american dream,
biggest, best, fastest
factories. some shuttered
but a superfund legacy lives on,
parting gift for locals. that creek
behind the house? don’t play
in it, child, on record-
breaking hot afternoons.
of our death
the word entered flesh, the
word is trichloroethylene, or
tcl, if that makes it easier to
deny tumors bequeathed
to the community.
the lord is with thee
Image: “sweltering” by spinster cardigan, licensed under CC 2.0.
Peggy Hammond:
The event that pushed me to write this poem was Tropical Storm Fred’s devastating flooding in western North Carolina; the Pigeon River rose to record flood levels. Homes and lives were lost, and in the aftermath, locals said they’d never seen anything like it. Although some deny climate change, the evidence of worsening storms and rising temperatures can’t be ignored; in part, that’s what this poem tries to capture. But it also spotlights the larger issue of man’s impact on nature, and to do this, I reference a superfund site in Asheville, NC, caused by pollution from a factory that operated from the late 1950s to mid-1980s. In between stanzas, almost like a lament, I used pieces of the rosary prayer Hail Mary, Full of Grace. Overall, this poem is my way of asking, will we ever wake up?
Peggy Hammond’s most recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Comstock Review, Waterwheel Review, Jabberwock Review, The Silent World in Her Vase, San Pedro River Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, The Raven’s Perch Literary Magazine, Third Wednesday, Eunoia Review, Scissortail Quarterly, and Moonstone Arts Center’s anthology Protest 2021.Her full-length play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, NC.
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