Target

 (Hiroshima Day photo exhibition)

Seen from here
where there is no
gun to point no kiss
of life

screams silenced,
target pursued
   
day when skins hung off
and trees
were sprayed with hot impact:
in a photograph, one ripe orange
still hanging black,
wouldn't drop off as if to say

“You have taken your pure blue fear
and made us into ash and graves
but I am not in the mood to fall” ...

day when faces looked up
and women held their children
as if they could put them back
in their bloody wombs
   
the day smelt
there was a sun that morning
an egg in the frying pan sun
           
the gas blew up

lovers waking melted into each other

Published in Its Own Mirror (UTS Anthology), 1991.