Breathing Hiroshima

American Poetry Review, The, Jul/Aug 2002 by Thompson, Christian C

I breathe Hiroshima--

fall-out refined by the air

of transcontinental drift

sifted by nostrils,

bored by freedom

to die more slowly

than those in Japan

who ran down streets of human ash

choked by the smell of burning flesh

eyes wider than the aftermath

of any nightmare

I forget each day.

Can history live

in a white Anglo-Saxon

Protestant American

born after 1945,

dulled by good fortune,

injected from birth with t.v.?

A monster of blankness

whispers nothing and I,

from the bunker of my oblivion,

listen, try to disappear

while the world goes on around me,

yet I cannot

vanish completely,

something makes me uneasy,

hovers

even on a dear, peaceful day,

just above the trees,

calling me

to account for my life.

CHRISTIAN C. THOMPSON'S work has appeared previously in The American Poetry Review. His short fiction and poetry have also appeared in The Amherst Review, Caveat Lector, Appalachia, and The Aurorean. He was a finalist in the Center for Book Arts 2002 poetry chapbook competition.