HIROSHIMA
by
Tom Nattell 

Hiroshima, 

300,000
in city,
air burst,
sun melt,
fire burning,
consuming,
casting forth
dust of death,
blackening
the sky
with clouds
of broken
molecules
smashed from
live cell
walls,
drifting
across
landscape,
disgusting
rain
upon hillside
where
screams
cease to echo,
where silence
is a scream,
where terror
eats into
bones
and cancer
is
prophesy.

(Tom Nattell was an Albany native, poet, activist, coordinator of Readings Against the End of the World, Poets in the Park, and the legendary QE2 monthly open mic. He died of cancer in January, 2005.)