“Mike” Test

I was going to write about a crescent
of honeydew melon. An artist told me

she paints grids when she isn’t
certain how to begin. A grid of steel

stores nuclear fuel below the surface
of pools in temporary rooms

with red railings. I glanced at one image,
then checked my email, my nightshade

tank top wet against the dip in my spine
you might like to touch

and say, Stop. Have a glass of water.
There once was a structure three-stories tall

built on an island Japan surrendered.
This building was a bomb.

At its center, liquid hydrogen filled a thermos.
We nicknamed it after an angel

appearing in the Bible, the Torah, and the Qur’an.
Or maybe the name could have come

from a football player of the Fifties
we might remember on Trivia Night.

I think how hammers strike the thinnest
wires inside a piano. Hard.

Once, we evacuated the coral shore
my grandfather flew over

in a B-17—the typed label of his photo
half torn. The Department of the Interior

Master Plan shows where the people will live.
I swallow vomit after watching

the island wart into an orange bulb. Just before,
birds glanced off the shimmering water.