I was in no hurry, for he was
past this world's impatience, there
in that quiet room, prostrate, manicured
so we could "view" him

before I cleared my driveway,
I saw a white dove--was this an omen?
until this eve I was not sure such a creature
existed--still no verdict on omens

at the first stoplight, a Harley, straddled by
a horse three hundred pounds soaking dry,
caught my eye--shorts and pink ubiquitous
breast cancer awareness tee (really)

at the funeral home, there was not
a space to be found, so I parked at the
Baptist church across the street -- I doubt
the lot knew the deceased was Catholic

in the entrance to this place of grief
and peace, and artificial flowers, two men
in twin black suits were arguing -- I heard only
one sentence, "His wife doesn't need to know!"

then, of course, I decided not to go, but did
stop for a Big Mac and fries on the way home, wondering
if the bulky biker had been through the line before me,
and if the mythic white dove was yet on my lawn

the waters ring red
with the ferrous clay from these plains
brutish brown on cloud cluttered days
caramel during floods

my feet know nothing
of water moccasins, though
a rattler nipped an ankle on these banks
a million years ago

feet don't recall
they slip into the cool tickling stream
innocent, not looking for a Baptismal
though the serpents are ever present

slithering in the depths
just beyond my eyes, only a few silt filled steps
from my ten toes, waiting--wanting fallible
flesh to slip within their sights

where there will be no
original naked temptation, only the striking,
the ******* venom, and the second fall
from grace, without woman to blame

he moves the pace of the river,
his home a houseboat

he eschews dry land, for that is where
they are all buried:

a wife, his only son, the anonymous victims
of his rifle's rabid rattle

whatever ghostly litany lives in the lapping of waves
against his hull remains mystery to him

on the water he'll stay, drifting downstream
until he reaches the sea

where he hopes he'll have no memory
of hard earth and tormenting souls

the surface, frozen
in the depths, they rest
suspended among ice
crystals

we can't see through
the crust, though we
know they are there,
for simple hook and bait
wake them

within the fine folds
of their brains, the
accumulated wisdom
of a half billion years
guides them to the catch
the promise of full gut

they don't see us through
the ice, we two legged novices
in the kingdom--jesters who lull
them from Cambrian dreams,
to the white light of today

they snap the lure
they flap about on the frozen pond,
we witness their death throes, unaware
what the gasping future holds
for the wretched species
to which we belong

I was chicken
dropped only a half tab--a quarter before midnight  
and hurried back to my apartment
before the day changed    

from a Monday
to a ruby Tuesday  
where my walls melted
and music smelled like sassafras;
the flickering flares of light from two fat candles  
tasted like toasted almonds    

every eternal hour, or minute,
or so, I would try to tiptoe down the hall  
past the sleeping neighbors who were all dreaming
of me, skulking past their locked doors

but I never made it to the street
a feat that would have demanded
I stop giggling, and my heart stop thumping
for any pig or narc could have seen
my crimson machine pumping
ready to fly from my chest    

dawn did finally come--I was
coming down, down from the floor
on which I had lain from the minute
a ferocious fly dive bombed me
somewhere around three  

I walked to the corner grocery store
where I bought pan dulce, and was glad the clerk
spoke no English, for surely she would have asked me
to tell her how I survived such an aerial assault  
in peacetime

of a million paddies fed by Mother Mekong, one he knew best

one where he waded knee deep at noon, naked except for a **** cloth

though double wrapped in pain, after the ****** left his family frozen in black

only a mad night before, in a war his dozen years could not comprehend

he still heard them calling his name from the razed ville, the muddy waters

where he sloshed in half circles, aping a reverse arc of the sun

as if moving from west to east, he could rewind time to yesterday

when they hunkered with him, and took shelter from the dry season sun,

unawares what else under a pure white sky could birth fierce fire

his old arm points west,
so weighted with years, his crooked
finger aims down, to the cracked ground
more than to the setting sun

thrice in eighty plantings,
he's seen these droughts drench
the thirsty earth with white fire
but this one, he swears upon
creation, is the worst

holy houses fill with prayer
for rain--the man says this is in vain,
though the good lord hears all entreaties
he has always been miserly
with his mercies

this shall pass
he avers, but he doubts
he will see another warm summer rain
his baptismal to come as wind
from the scorched plains, one
that scatters but dry seeds for
tomorrow's harvest moons

the days, she counts
backwards, and recalls what she was doing
5000 sunsets ago

and she does know
5000 from now, she'll be gone, if number
wizards are right

on this winter night,
she thumbs through old photos
of loved ones now far away

she finds one of a sunny day
five decades past--she and her man long departed
sitting under a tree

there she can plainly see
the pines and the bed of needles
on which they made love

and directly above,
she squints to discover, a bird
caught in flight  

she returns to this night,
places the photo in the box where
it has rested all these years  

somehow, the image allays her fears:
the father of her children, smiling, holding her hand;
the bird she finally saw, wings spread forever

oy vey
everyday, oy vey
Granny couldn't get through
an hour without a dour
oy vey

the woeful phrase I recall,
though most of all, I still see her
scrubbed raw, red paws, always
clutching a tissue, to keep
the ghastly germs at bay

the ones she believed
yet survived the camps
no matter how much time
and scalding baptismal
water had flowed

though far from the filth
even farther from the ovens, safe
she still said oy vey and held the tissue tight
perhaps to keep out the night
I never had to see
oy vey, oy vey

Rain bathed cobblestones,
like petrified loaves of bread,
reflect the clopping feet of man and beast.
A family of umbrellas
held by long departed souls;
their bobbing ceased by the artist’s hand
who also crafted a
curious couple
in this misty land.
On what their eyes gazed
he would never say,
but it matters not—we still have a rainy Paris day

he stares
he covets
he loves
he hates

not only the elixir,
its anesthetizing allure,
but also its vessel

in which he can see
reflected, his hands,
his mouth

though not his eyes;
they reveal too much:

his last human touch
lambs on blood red fields of war
his mother gasping her last breath
his stillborn son

in this parley
his eyes cannot belie  
he hears screaming voices
in an empty, stone
quiet room    

the glass, then, will win;
‘tis an unfair balance; its perfect
symmetry, its solemn silence
the almighty alchemy it holds  

against him--his ghosts,
his hands, his mouth, all ready
to concede defeat

seventy-five years ago today
I was napping on the deck, only the day
after I celebrated birthday number 25

they call that quick stretch from then
'til now, three-quarters of a century--though to me,
it seems not a fraction of anything

if anything is a fraction, it is I, though
now a full century on my calendar, I am but half
a man, my two legs sawed off, 12/7/41

on the flat screen in my room, I see other ancient
mariners, many proudly wheeled to the commemoration  
of that day--most with legs yet there

but what good are those parts, for war
and age leveled them, hobbled them even if they walk...
maybe I was the lucky soul

for I was sliced down to size all at once
humbled, hurt, but happy to come home, where
I made a life, with what pieces I had left

after the Sunday morning which began
with a soft singing breeze from the Pacific, and ended
with the tempests of hell, as I understand them

Fuji, Rainier, now to Africa’s pinnacle
she followed, behind a parade of sycophants  
marching, single file behind his greatness  

few made ascents with him  
she only Fuji, on a windless day  
though others made the trek up Rainer,
surviving a blizzard that hit halfway
down  

she told her lover
his faithful must have thought his presence
imbued them with immortality  
which he seemed to possess    

maybe it did, the lover said  
seven decades and one, still *******
old mountains and young women  
and she was still there, despite
the doctors’ bleak sentence    

she was painting, moving
while she still could, a water color
of Rainier in mist, hanging in some
haunted hall in his home

now a pale pastel of Kilimanjaro
for which he would spend a fortune, to hang  
somewhere he would not spend a minute    

when her extended contract expired  
she would be ashes scattered in Big Sur  
and he would still be climbing higher  
breathing heaven’s ether, a color
she never captured  

but her signature
would be on overpriced art  
which from the start, he commissioned
to keep her from leaving without
having seen rarefied air

I knew Pearl, comely, calm Pearl
eyes as blue as the skies
that warmed her sands
where we walked and talked
dreamed the days away
her voice so sweet on the Pacific winds
it made me forget about home
I was breaking daily bread
dipping it in the
yellow yolk promise of eggs
when little gunner Joe
said come down below
to see the kitty he found
crouched in the shadowed corner
no bigger than the rivets
get her some milk he said
when we placed the offering in front of her
she roared a lion’s roar…
and the roar kept coming
and the young living
thing
disappeared into the darkness...
the stench of smoke
the screeching screams
the fierce rocking of the hull
and blackness
which came too fast to touch
all spoke with equal madness
telling us doom
can come on a sunny Sunday morn
in Pearl’s land
falling,
is something we all know
in the flat land of dreams
in the lucky light of day, and
on that Sunday morn,
in the boiling bowels of our ship
slowly,
with some giant hand in command
the water, the water,
the water we all had grown to love
now taunting our feet,
then our knees
the pounding began
the eternal pounding
the pounding of the hopeful
in Pearl’s blue skies
and our pounding,
the pounding of the ******,
without any eyes
the water
now at our waists
now at our chests
and then only our frozen faces
against the hard steel that had been our home
had the last few breaths of air to breathe
heard the last few gasps of desperation
and the feeble futile pounding
of those in Pearl’s darkened sun…
now we rest in this sunken tomb
the guests roaming above
with cameras and tearless eyes
for they were not
the ones who heard our cries
those who did, do not return
for Pearl is no longer a sunny beach
and a stroll in a dream
but a place where the pounding started
and never stopped
and where the world changed forever
when the first bomb was dropped

the last victim of polio;
she took up brush and canvas
and began a portfolio of one

her singular subject,
a sagging pear in the neighbor's yard,
threatening the cedar fence daily

and daily she would add strokes
sometimes only a vein on a blue Monday  
a leaf in a weekend, and a chunk
of trunk on a winded Wednesday

over summer greens she would
double dab fall's golds, yellows, or russet
if snow had begun to drift

seasons, years made their circles  
until her hands became stiff, her eyes
filled with film--then, she only sat by the palette,
silent, reverent to a lifelong friend  

when she passed, the work
was nearly done, missing only half a fiery sun,
yet the sky was a glorious blue
by chance the final hue

of an image altered  
a hundred score, by a hand
that would have done so
a thousand more

I drew an old man,
with beard

like mine--though his face had
more wrinkles

deep lines of age
are hard to draw  

my pencil bore down at the center
of those creases

like I was trying to leave a mark
that wouldn't fade

or trying to carve something
from nothing

piling lead upon lead,
on paper

that couldn’t protest my adding of years,
with a dull number two        

when my pencil was but a nub, there were
more years yet to add  

by then, my hands were weary
my eyes blurred

I had no blade to shave the wood    
from the shaft    

to make more eternal marks
on white space

a dad, two kids  
the latter running for the shade and shelter
of the picnic table--dad strolling behind,
with pizza and crazy bread  

one family of a dozen there
in 75 degree Texas sunshine  
mid winter, as russet leaves
and calendar attest        

now I recall my only picnic
a half century past, where I discovered
peanut butter could be made magical  
with marshmallow cream  

from this same walking
and waking dream, I see a star
hanging  between two oaks, and a sea  
of hip hippies dancing, rocking to
mystic chants of their own device  

for the music died
long ago, electric and eternal
though we thought it was  

today, in a sun drenched park,
it is calm breeze I hear, the sibilant sizzling songs
of my past are long lost in space, but the wickedly wonderful
white goop on that sandwich, I yet taste
with transcendent  joy

your milky dusky hue
blankets the black
that kept me in my bed
afraid to awake
more afraid to sleep

now I see you,
yawning along with me
erasing history each moment
even before the golden orb
cracks your silence
with its fickle fire

I know you,
false hope giver
promising light
fooling eternal night
but not eternally
for you too will one day be black

I will not see this
nor will my seed
nor theirs, but one day
the crack between earth and sky
will vanish
and eyes that long for light
will become
part of karmic night
the dripping sweetness they craved
in golden blue light
will be gone

spikes on graph paper
a biography of the earth's
distracted driving

masses merging with another:
hostile takeovers of stone; skyscrapers crumble,
choking apocalyptic dust in their wake

then tsunamis soar,
a fierce baptismal; my mountain home
spared the deluge though

inside, the family's china escaped
from its cabinet, only to be gravity's meal
and shatter in shards myriad

one serving dish survived,
flesh from the lamb filled it, steaming
only a fortnight ago

we'll buy new plates, ones
that will remain in silent stacks, until
another festive event

or until the seismograph records
another jagged jump, scribing one more tale
of earth's lamentable tensions released

you invited us
to life’s one act play
where the bearded lady shouts to me
in her mocking spotlights
I don’t stay to listen
to what might be the truth
long ago I hid from that,
(burning bibles talking, and
prison doors locking)
yes, I fled
through the tempting doors
not yet barred
to write riddles
far from her shining stage
outside, in the cold stillness
alone
where the owl plays some game in the night
and hoots its signal of our plight

passionate peach, the cream acrylic on their wall
filling the textured grooves the trowels had left

almost pink in morning light, taking on the color of
the fruit at eventide, when incandescence reigned  

when fireplace flames flickered, the wall became a fickle facade:
gray in shadow one moment, pale peach the next

his favorite chair sat there, where she thought it looked best,
a worn rocking guest in a room filled with modernity;  

that is where she found him, slumped over, eyes agape
blue metal gun in his lap, where it had landed

after the dead journey from his mouth, after he had
squeezed the trigger but once

painting the flat wall behind him with hues of crimson,
cherry, and bits of white  

what queer shape this scattering had made, she thought;
surely not a visage, though it appeared so  

as she watched in paralytic silence while strangers
washed the gore from the wall  

leaving but a black hole where his rich red legacy
had left its beguiling design

he saw him, the gun,
the uniform, not in a dream, but in between
sleep and wakefulness, when morning tugged
on him to start the day

while he lay, and recalled other mornings  
when his eyes would open to the same gray walls,
the same black and white visions foretelling
what he would see:

the time he saw his brother dragged
through a field, a casualty of some grand battle
only hours later to discover, he was pulled from a fire,  
a **** lab explosion, speed burned, ignoble

or one cold morning when he awakened
after a sensation of careening down a hill with others
around him screaming, and by noontide he read  
of a bus going off a cliff into the sea,

and the cursed time he sat up suddenly, drenched in sweat,
after his dream of a child singing morphed into nightmare,
a little one struck with fever; of course, his niece was rushed
to the ER an hour later, mercury reading 104

this morning was different, for it was he
he saw as vision's victim, running down a street,
cop commanding halt, and seeing himself hit the asphalt, just after
he felt a thud--just before the world returned to black

I do not have a picture of you
except the gray one drifting in my head  
I will feebly tell the world about you
and your three walls
the grated window does allow the morning light  
to shine upon the graffiti prophets’ words
a scratched and scrolled novella
on the ancient cold bricks  
the indelible tales they tell
hang above the pocked porcelain pools  
where the unclean
were scrubbed by the unholy  
who thought them unworthy
of their sacred soil  
some would scream during the rituals
not at the pain of the brush
or the eye sting of the careless lye,
their rabid cries
came from the vacant eyes
of their captors
who did not see them
in their naked splendor,
speak their forgotten names
in the dead morning air, or  
even hear them,
when they cried to their gods for mercy,
to be released from their pestilent past
and to be made blind
to the servant’s silent suffering
only they could see

my actress, who
sweated blood on Broadway each night
off Broadway too

said, on a long stroll
through Central Park. she was successful
because she did not like herself

on the stage, she proclaimed,
she was never herself, and she fell in love
with every character she portrayed  

every script was a better bio
than her own, and the playwrights knew
her better than she knew herself

and when our walk
was curtailed by a downpour, she dragged me
into a crowded cafe

where she knew half the patrons
and the wait staff, and they all knew the different
personas she had owned, on the dry stage

rain now forced her to choose  
which selves to keep, and which to lose
while she sipped scalding tea

with me, on a grey wet afternoon,
only hours before she would again be under  
the spell of the hot lights,

and read verses from the pens of prophets,
poets--those who purloined her soul for the price
of admission, to a place without self loathing

the same, again, again

I am in the bunker
the wire is crawling with them
like so many black clad snakes
spewing venom at my brothers and at me
and I am out of ammo, my M16 magazines
empty, caked with mud

everyone is looking to me
for salvation, for a salvo of rounds
at the VC, and I find a twenty two
Ruger pistol, the same one I used
to **** a buzzard for sport, one
sinful desert day; and now I aim
at the enemy, firing over
and over, hitting them
dead center, but they
keep coming

I never run out of rounds
but the impotence of my fire
burns inside me--I reach for my empty M16,
but it's still empty--they keep coming

even when I wake, even when
the morning sun has blotted out
the black dream

they keep coming
I keep reaching, reaching
for the empty gun

hitchhiking was common
in the summer of love
guess we thought we were guarded
from evil
by some mystical power above

my thumb was my plea
to generous humanity
to carry me to glorious heights
and other ethereal sights

many souls obliged me
both young and old
only wanting to be told
where I had been and where I wanted to go
for we were all part of life’s flow

so it went for many a dreamy mile
and after only a little while
I began to think nirvana could be achieved
as long as we all believed
in the love we called free

until one summer night
when my thumb was seen
by him
by him
in his old Olds
with his slick head of hair
why
did he
turn right on that desert road
that wasn’t the way to…
why did he…?

he stopped the car by a shallow ravine
where it could not possibly be seen
by other dreamers under the same dark skies
and pointed the blue stinking steel barrel
at my shaking face
“out, out!”
out, out brief candle I wondered?

I did not run, not from his gun
and when he pulled a shovel from his mysterious trunk
I can only remember that something sunk
my young heart? drum like pounding
and his vile voice sounding
like I would imagine an imp from hell

he leaned the shovel against the car door
and was about to ask my body for more
until I grabbed the grave digger with a frantic paw
and swung it wildly until I saw
him lying in the hard desert dirt
with his greasy head starting to squirt
the blood
the blood…
(later I wondered
who else shared this blood?)
but on that night
and in that dream
I only remember the blood
turning the sand from gray to black
and him lying on his back
and weak feeble gasps from his foul mouth
and me silencing his guttural pleas
with another blow
and another
and another
until
he was still

my arms ached when the sun began to rise
and I finally could open my eyes
to see him nowhere to be found
(except under the gritty ground)
and my deed was done

I awake
again and again
to wonder
where I really was the night before
and if there was really such a thing as settling a score
with the man who opened my childlike eyes
or for me, who closed his
forever

For some reason,
I walk softly on this ground
Expecting perhaps to be chided
if I make an unwelcome sound

Among stone sentinels in scattered rows
beside a clear stream that perpetually flows
are markers with names both common and bold
for mourners and the curious all to behold

Some come to release dammed up tears
others to tease their deepest fears
Some like I tread so lightly they leave no tracks
but others come bearing burdens like heavy sacks

I read the dates and do the simple math
and create my own tales of each soul’s path
Some lived eighty, some lived less
and others carved numbers seemed to confess
that the trail they walked was likely brief
and with each breath they exhaled cold hard grief

But my stories are surely not real
and my reveries can hardly conceal
what I conjure up among these standing stones
and the crumbling and hidden sacred bones
are tales that mask the shivering thought
that soon I will rest in a similar plot

For some reason,
I walk softy on this holy soil
and in some coming season
I will finish my toil
And lie near this same clear stream
and begin my own blank eternal dream

two of you,
on my green turf, at play
this sun-drenched day

squirrels courting? or plotting to gnaw on my trim
on a whim, it seems, since my trees have left you
ample acorns and plentiful pecans to fat your bellies,
sharpen your teeth

my neighbor has trapped and drowned a score of you  
a dreadful thing to do, many would contend--though I cannot pretend, I’ve not called about a trap

but alas,
I could not watch you writhe wildly
and gasp for breath, without recalling the ancient paddies
and those in my sights whose play I ended, with the fast flick of a switch and easy pull of the trigger, on another sunny day

a thousand miles we traveled to see
your jack-hammered giants--we arrived at dusk
just as the torrents began, bathing your
chiseled countenances

we hid in our chariot of modernity
wipers flapping in syncopated time, Bluetooth belching
out words from kin, "have a good time,"
"sorry for the storm..."  

but I wasn't, for lightning struck
a blackjack pine, and four mammoth men
came to life, their sheen now electric, their long
mute voices once again a resounding roar

I couldn’t manage a lotus position,
so I tried you, my bare feet reaching
for the stained ceiling of my apartment  
sitar music and stale **** smoke  
there with me  

like the dwellings
of a million mid-century bohemians  
who tried transcendence long
enough to get hungry    

when I now try you,  
Salamba Sarvangasana,  
I get a bit dizzy--spinning
a reaping reminder I have passed
nearly sixty-four years  

looking up, at cleaner plaster  
I no longer hear the music; the grass is gone,
replaced  by fumes perhaps more beguiling  

then I fall  
never able to pronounce your name  
ever aware my feet could not remain
airborne forever

my father is dead
though in the whimsical world of words
I can resurrect him, not in the raining rays
of the Texas sun, but in the darkness
in his Oldsmobile, on a Christmas Eve
bathed in the lighter lights of the season,
their reflections, rolling over our tinted windshields,
littered our eager eyes, in color
and cacophonous taunting,
“ ‘tis the season, ‘tis the season”

the children are not yet
disenchanted by these chants,
thinking still of presents under the tree
some flickering sense of mystery

I, old enough to shave and see the cords
that feed the mocking lights, catch a lump
in my throat, before it fills my eyes with terrible tears
for I know the car will take us back from whence we came
far from the Plaza where we watch the lights,
to the walls where the colors don’t speak
to a place where one day someone will die
and the lights and all my words
will not bring them back

their walls pale peach, eggshell
tiny flowered paper in the dining room
wood panels in the den

but then, when the boy's voice changed
and hair began to stubble his face, he painted
his own space

eleven by a dozen feet,
all scarlet as Camara rose  
though the can said,
“Passion Red”  

when daylight shined
on these crimson plains, his mother swore
she saw flickering flames  

the boy told her there was no fire
but to extinguish her ire, he painted again,
a stark white, but in just the right light
she still saw a simpering glow    

off to college he went, a full day
she spent, pressing the roller firm against his walls,
extracting every red drop that remained, until
again in perfect light, she was certain  
she saw imps and fallen angels  
dancing in delight

why do blackbirds
leave so many brown droppings
on my white mailbox, riveted
to a red painted post, planted
in green Bermuda grass, by
a gray asphalt road, under
a baby blue eye sky

swish, swash
under a blue moon
you, in your chariot, racing north
on Highway 1

while I look for footprints
in the sand--five toed tracks to prove
you were here with me

swish, swash, sea songs
replacing your voice, like I had any choice
but goodbye

after your confession,
and your appeal for absolution,
on the same shore we first lay,
naked

and walked until the sun rose
above the silent cliffs--the same bluffs
you climbed now to be with him

would you two also tread a beach
and marvel at weather worn gems, the purple waves'
evidence time smooths and soothes all things

I don't believe it
even as I find and finger new green and amber shapes
on this eternal stretch of sand

struck by lightning twice by twenty-four
this astronomical record was hers, Guinness proclaimed,
this lady so famed, top of her class at Stanford, then Yale Med,
and blissfully wed, to a surgeon who always came in second

this did not matter at Cabo, or even in their first condo  
but as her curriculum vitae grew faster than a Walmart receipt
on Black Friday, he scrubbed up for one bloodletting after another, removing appendixes, and appendages, feeling her shadow
grow heavy, even in the bright lights
of his operating theater

his first was, of course, a nurse, though at least her age
his second, a decade newer model, fixed his lattes at Starbucks
number three was the neighbor with whom they shared
nothing but a fence, and a few awkward stares

her hours in the lab with petri dishes grew, and  
she never let on she knew, that her clean shaven number two  
was lying with others to stand himself  

when he asked for a divorce--number four requiring more
than liquid exchanges in sweet hotel suites--she acquiesced and even let him have the Welsh Corgi, the cabin in Aspen,
and half the 401K

to this day, she recalls imagining his liaisons  
while she married menacing molecules to one another
in tubes under faithful light, seeking answers to questions
asked by the dying she would never meet
a lump would only grow in her throat    
if she thought his scalpel never sliced
the heart of number four, for five

six and one I saw, doubtless  
others were in the reeds    

the seven sensed I was there, and made their
pyramid wakes on the pond’s surface  

before taking flight to flee from me, a two-legged,
wingless, clumsy giant  

what fat, finite clump of cells in a mallard’s mind
commanded webbed feet to stir, wings to flap?  

somewhere, deep in pink folds in
their perfectly sculpted skulls  

hides a memory of what we flat earth
walkers hath wrought  

skewering them on crude sticks, roasting their flesh
on ancient, mystic pyres

Michiko would never know
the strange creature that opened its bowels
that day, was named Enola Gay

she would remember the fine feel of the water on her face,
the taste of tea she had with her pears, and the odor of chrysanthemums through her window

the same window through which
her mother would stare, there, at the morning sky
at the smothering smoke of all creation

her brother was left a shadow
on a wall, nothing left at all of her father
who stood at ground zero

Michiko, only double digits the day before
would follow her mother down the long road
to the smoldering fires and scorched skin
and the stalking stench of the dead

on the path, along the way
but only that day, Michiko would see the black giant
growing in the summer sky
a magnet to her eye

more beautiful than all
the sweet flesh and shrines that fed it
a billion years in an instant
that August morn