Wendy Rose
"I am death, the destroyer of worlds . . . the physicists have known sin and this is a knowledge they cannot lose."
J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1945
-
the lines of your arteries
begin to glow making maps
finger follows afraid &
firm pale like the alamagordo sky
the white lizards in the sandare you humming or is it
a wayward insect or the tremble
of your deepest bones. los alamos
trinity alamagordo (frail robert)
jornada del muerto you crouch
in the bunker hands to your eyes
your light gray business suit
loosened tie speaking to
transparent friends or to no one
in particular -
& you are amazed at the welts
so wide on your wrists, those chains
enormous from your belt.
not even your wife was awake
morning pivot of your life
the radio groaned you twisted
the knob feeling for
an end to feeling but the voice
said anyway how your kids went screaming
from the crotch of the plane
mouth-first onto play yard & roof top
& garden & temple, onto hair & flesh
onto steel & clay leaving you
leaving you leaving you
your own fingerprints in the ashes
your vomit your tears
the tools, the technology
trap one"
From The Halfbreed Chronicles and Other Poems by Wendy Rose, The West End Press.
© 1985 Wendy Rose
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