This guy was on the bar steps,
but mentally by the tap, mentally
lip-locked with a long neck lover
mentally on a beach  in Vietnam.
"Red Beach Two," I swear he said.
It could've been "we beat you,"
aimed at the Vietnamerican
bartender straining Manhattan
Projects for faceless suits toasting
by the jukebox beating out Springsteen.
Something about a bomb, millions of lives,
and innocent Satan. But that war's over now.
This guy must have seen some ****
because he kept his arms down
and eyes at attention like a death
march. He watched everything
like a liquid sky slowly draining,
leaving the Sun tacked up
to the cosmos. He pushed the crescent
moon over to get a better look
at Andromeda's guts, and tore
a hole in the pool lining. He revealed
more ocean with U-boats and Albatrosses
and the Enola Gay sobbing for what it had done.
And bombs / bombs / bombs. And Nagasaki,
we did it. It's our fault. "We're sorry"
spokesung to the beat of a two-finger
tremolo on a stretched hide drum.
And Hiroshima, we're sorry. We didn't know,
but we did. WE ******* KNEW ALL ALONG.
We made the bomb, we tested it in the desert,
we put a bow on it, and left it on your doorstep.
We left it beneath the arch. THE ARCH.
That arch I've seen in my dreams.
This guy,
broke and begging for a beer,
has seen it.
He is it.
He was the atom bomb and the bomber
and Hiroshima and the universe.
He is it.