The mineral with one syllable, in Pittsburghese. Give it a try. Lock tongue and soft palette to hiss, but growl the “I” into lanky “aye.” Sever the wings of “O.” Vowels are mythical creatures in this land of rivers: Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio. Leap right to the end: “rn.” Pretend these consonants dance on life’s spectrum halfway between joy (a pirate exclamation in baby’s storybooks) and grief (grandma’s final, soot-streaked vessel lodged in the closet). The word should clop out like a sack full of lug nuts. Speak as if you memorized Fe on the periodic table before middle school chemistry, learned on the see-saw that iron requires carbon to birth steel. Harmonize it with the whistle across the bridge, black-gold nuggets torn from nearby soil overflowing the train cars. Repeat in time to the orange waste trickling down the valley, the hospice beds beeping at each household. Swill it around with I.C. Light rooting for them Stillers. Use it in a sentence with me. I ayrned my husband’s shirts. At breakfast, I dry gulp my ayrn supplements. I’m ayrnin’ out office drama in a different state. My partner, an atomic number 6, I kiss goodnight, his exhales harden my brittle ayrn heart ‘til sleep comes. Flee, but speak looking backward. When you wake, you’ll still not be home.
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Lauren Kardos (she/her) writes from Washington, DC, but she’s still breaking up with her hometown in Western Pennsylvania. The Molotov Cocktail, Rejection Letters, (mac)ro(mic), Best Microfiction 2022, and The Lumiere Review are just a few of the fine publications where her work lives. You can find her on Twitter @lkardos.