The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.
— J. Robert Oppenheimer
it must be there
in the soil : still
the radio insists
nothing remains
but desolate & un-
lovely wind-swept
country : no burning
hills or unbreathable
air : no aftermath : no
echo : the model homes
built for just this purpose
rooted to the same earth
like failed desert stars :
the lungs of every child
born within 50 miles un-
touched by the darkness
i cannot help but hand down
one more generation : son
& daughter & this roomful
of unbalmed wounds : every-
thing collapsing into gravity
: the color of their skin & curve
of their eyes are borderlands now
: minidoka ghosted in their blood :
pandemic a kind of self-portrait :
those turbines in the distance hurt
our view of unabated absence : older
energies : detonations : the father they invent
every day to give themselves something
to look up to must still be here : inside me
a half-believed-in faith that for every
action an equal & opposite : that the un-
stable core of us decays a bit less violently
than it used to : soil & star & the ghosts
of my great grandparents cursing this god-
awfully beautiful plurality : their world
a key broken off in the lock of a door
i’m praying my children will never open
JOHN SIBLEY WILLIAMS is the author of seven poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award), The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-six-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.
