The Nuclear Age

Never underestimate clever lives engaging all reason. No
uranium can lessen ever after rushing: now-now-now! uttered
childlike, envy-anger reaching. New understanding crafts
likenesses, excites atoms, reality never upended completely. Let
every atom react: Nancy, Uncle, Charlie, Luna, Easy,
Able, Rushmore
, names undoing creation. Let everyone answer
readily, nothing untoward, controversial. Light ends. Air recedes.

Anna Leahy is the author of Constituents of Matter, which won the Wick Poetry Prize. She edited the book Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom. She teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at Chapman University and directs Tabula Poetica and its annual reading series.

*Photo courtesy of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.