August 5, Hiroshima
There was a city and then no city. You could see the ocean.
~Kaleria Palchikoff Drago
There was a city,
tea shops, furniture stores.
Women carried paper-wrapped fish,
held fruit to be weighed,
children dressed for school. A man told jokes to his friend,
grade school classmates, then businessmen.
He loved when his friend
threw his mouth open wide.
And then no city,
the men caught in outline, bodies stamped
against cement.
You could see the ocean.
You could see
a child reduced to carbon,
buildings heaped like blocks. You could smell
the burning.
There was a city and then no city.
Skin peeled from a girl’s hands
as she lifted her skirt to her eyes,
fingers bare bone.
Her brother bled from his nose.
A woman showed the imprint of her dress,
flowers burned across each shoulder blade.
At least they are my husband’s favorite.
Another said, I died when my family died,
then again with each cancer,
stomach, mouth, lungs.
Each time the doctor folds his hands,
another part of me.
There was a city, 8:14,
and then no city, 8:15.
You could see the ocean.
And right after that, black rain.
And that’s when the fire began.
– andrea scarpino