Resilience
Written by Nancy Jane Moore   

bomb.jpgResilience

Nancy Jane Moore

This is the only poem I’ve written since college, and I sold it immediately, to the irritation of my poet friends, who struggle to get their work published. However, upon reflection, I think this piece is more of a flash fiction, or perhaps a flash memoir, than it is a poem.


I used to dream that the Berlin Wall ran down the middle of my house
As the night wore on, the Wall would move
Until the whole house ended up on the wrong side.
I had to escape by crawling through a hole in my closet floor.
I always woke up as I climbed into the hole
So I never knew
If I got away.

When I was five or six
I sat on the living room floor, clutching my teddy bear,
Watching a TV show about a family contaminated by radiation.
Their little girl had to leave her teddy bear behind.
I begged my mama to tell me
That nothing like that would ever happen to me.

I knew there was something to be afraid of
Though I was never sure exactly what it was:
Communism or radiation poisoning

Or the bomb.

Now I'm a grown-up.
My nail clippers are carefully packed in my checked luggage.
I've stopped wearing the hair clip that sets off the metal detector.
They've put heavy-duty trash cans back in the subway station
Though you still have to walk across the street to buy a newspaper.

Several times a day helicopters drone above my house.
Are we on orange alert this week?
Or mauve?

Meanwhile the government of my country has launched another war.
I scream at the radio every morning.
So far, no one has listened.

But I stopped being quite so frightened
When I found out
That blue green algae grows inside the nuclear reactor at San Onofre.

Copyright © 2003 by Nancy Jane Moore

This piece originally appeared in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 12.

 
< Prev   Next >
[ Back ]
Joomla Templates by Joomlashack