By Subhaga Crystal Bacon

Drinking Bourbon without ice in the July heat,

I’m sitting on a dock on the edge of a man-

made reservoir, thousands of acres that cool

a nuclear reactor in Bumpass, Virginia, pronounced,

of course, Bump us, and it does and it may.

The water here on the lake’s cool side slaps

our bottoms on the pontoon boat that bumps

over its own wake, and wind buffets our hair

as we easily cross its vast surface under power

lines and past the cooling towers iconic

and incongruous amidst the 200 verdant miles

of shoreline, vacation homes, and wildlife habitat.

Maybe it won’t melt down. Maybe the alarm

made by a company where my younger nephew once

did the books won’t shatter our crossword focus,

leave us in ashes, melt down the Capitol, seventy-

three miles away, and the trailer parks that cling

beneath the trees by marinas with names like Duke’s

where livings are eked and pickups bought with dollars

from other places. On our way up to the house

to cook tonight’s dinner—shrimp and fettuccine—

we spot a brown water snake, its undulant

diamond pattern, its jaws unhinged and fangs

sunk in to the top half of a bass the size

of our eight-year-old’s shoe. It’s slow going to inch

it down, make itself as big as what feeds it

but evolution has prepared it to take what’s there

squeeze it and, in cold blood, survive.

Subhaga Crystal Bacon (she/they) is a Queer poet living in rural Washington on unceded Methow land. She is the author of four collections of poetry including Surrender of Water in Hidden Places, Red Flag Poetry, and Transitory, forthcoming in November of 2023 from BOA Editions.