Well-Water

By Lauren Goulette

Now wringing up well-water                                                                       
where we brushed our

old mouse’s ashes across. He was
there and we loved him

when he still lapped it up. Black-
tail on his bloated body slushed

when we found him. We drink
gallons of well-water and leave

an orange-ring around our
mouths when it’s dry

and can’t bother to fill
another bucket. This house

is eaten alive now. Dirt
cakes the cracks of our 

webbed hands; amphibians in
nature without chemically-treated

Refrigerators. After we tell you
we have well-water you

wish our lungs were iron
when we are born from

the river waste’s upflow. 
In a lab somewhere that

now is Amish country 
where the cash register 

sags off the plywood.
For lead and well-water

that lathers our tongues.
Homesick for a place

where our walls are 
garbage and the iron

levels in the well-water 
make only you sick.

Lauren Goulette is an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying creative writing, her work has been seen in The Pluvia Review, The Apprentice Writer, Glass Gates, and others.