Marie, Marie, what have you done?

Mollie still softly glows

with your beautiful radium

as if she were a star interred

slung over with human skin

except stars explode outward

not collapse from within.



Mollie, sweet Mollie, all but nineteen

sitting stiffly at her shift

quietly painting.

one by one, day by day

out came the teeth,

then her jaw removed

and the bleeding

that never ceased

yet the clocks all tick on

and numbers

must still illuminate.

This is war, girl, and

sacrifices are to be made.



Thirteen sisters dip their brushes

in the belly of the beast.

Their pursed lips

form the fine points

that detail work needs.

Undark atoms infiltrate

on each inhalation;

these unwitting scribes

are the ink in Our

industrial supplication.

This is the new world

with it’s new God –

Bright, shining Radiation.



Mollie, fair Mollie, five years now cold

yet in the dark you still flicker

like a trove of white gold.

We have come armed

with our shovels

and shame too terrible to be told

to clear your name justly

by burning your radiant bones