We won the war.
We won the war.
You say it, again and again.
You hold it in your mouth because the lie tastes better
against your tongue than any of these self-evident truths.
We won the war.

Far away,
under a scattered blue sky,
Vishnu takes on the shape of the many-armed destroyer.
He holds the prince’s chin in one of his hands,
and he says,
“Beloved, thus have I formed thee.”

And Oppenheimer stands on the empty New Mexico desert,
and he runs his fingers through blood he will never see,
and he says,
“Now I am become death.”

You dream.
You dream you are brilliance and dust,
and when you wake,
you weep,
for you are nothing but flesh and bone.