Atomic Soldiers on Parade - a poem by Karen Chamisso

 

O you bone-seeking babes of micro-light

You downwind masses with your glow-in-the-dark milk money!

You paid the secret tithe – secretly.

The pledge of allegiance in such small hands!

While Dr. Strangelove’s voyageurs explored the glands.

Desolation row has long been gentrified

In a win-win for the creatives, public-private funding.

What flakes blow in the hair dryer gusts

In the alley where the dumpsters overflow

With cartons of spoiled truffles, no one knows

Or measures with the zombie Geiger counter.

Down in the narco baroque private room,

A party is watered with La Mordorée 1991:

His money’s LBOs, hers, bein' 18

We’re all hypnotized by this barely legal routine,

And search the IAEA safety glossary

For appropriate responses.

“Migration: the movement of radionuclides”

“… most commonly in groundwater flow”;

It’s a cute meet as cute meets go

But my question’s about the whole body dose

Or “how to survive the atomic Bomb”, in paperback

Found in a box of Mama’s old clothes.

Bikinis from the atoll, sunglasses, cancer clusters

Bazooka Joe's dying, boys, dying like gangbusters.