AUGUST, 1945

I wasn’t yet born when they dropped the Bomb
on Hiroshima on Nagasaki
but I was alive, kicking in my mother’s belly.

I can still feel it, the deep memory
of the vibration, the low tone              “BOOOOOM”
traveling thru the ocean, thru the Earth
thru rocks and hills, speeding up, slowing down,
until it got to us —
my mother waiting on Long Island, in Bayside
waiting for the War to end, the troops to come home
me waiting in her, feeling it —
the vibration, the low tone              “BOOOOOM”
before it rumbles on
hours after the flash
after the first victims became shadows
a low rumble the way earthquakes are felt
the way trees sway back and forth
but I felt it best, floating there,
the vibration, the low tone              “BOOOOOM”
masked by the rhythm of the day
of walking, or turning over in sleep, of sex.

I could not know then what it was but I know felt it
the vibration, the low tone              “BOOOOOM”
like a great gasp of a flame extinguished in a glass jar
like the great rush of many lives going out at once.