Jeannine Hall Gailey - The Taste of Rust in August lyrics

Knoxville afternoons in summer, lightning on the air. The horses whinny, nervous; the chickens roost. Our chain-link fence is rusty. I like to taste it— that metallic clean I imagine to be the flavor of lightning. My brother was hit once, carrying a metal bucket to water the animals. It burned his arm, and left a funny taste in his mouth. Mother says I have always s**ed on spoons, licked lampposts, iron grates, j**elry. She goes crazy about the germs. She says I do it because of what she calls iron-poor blood and it's true—there's no rust in my skin at all, dull and transparent as wax paper. I run around the yard for hours, chasing the lightning, tracing those fractal lines in the sky with my fingers as the smell of ozone drives the dogs crazy.