Boy

Inspired by the anniversary of Hiroshima..

The Colonel never lost a night's sleep on the deal

but he stole the sun that day, repurposed it.

This is what He said -  the Bomb had no more

and no less moral consequence than any other weapon,

the knife, the gun, no conscience.

But the silver body banked and tilted

after the gift was given - see,the colours were

as terrible and unnatural as the seep

from a crack in the vault of heaven or hell.

He wrote himself a half life, Geiger counted-

his Mother named Enola Gay, he her little Boy,

sleeping murderous safe, the bomb in his cradle,

as the host sang radio songs.

If the Major dreamt of an imagination,

what nightmares he might see,

or wake with the sense of a mission never ending,

each midnight on course over the human target.

And the woulda coulda shoulda banality

of course corrections, moral micro adjustments

for the routine apocalypse, a job well done

for the destroyer of worlds,

The blinkered pilot

momentarily blinded

by another sun