A Sonnet for EMPs and other Nuclear Detonations

Henri shot up the stairs two at a time,
the sparks of his ascent licking his toes,
bare heels on steel, snapping nails as he goes,
step-skip-step-skip: then repeating the same,
until the radioflash singed her shoes,
a rumbling groundshock shook loose her coiled frame,
and rising blastwinds of indigo flame
from other suns of incandescent truths
trumpeted a dawn in the West. A name-
-less azure terror flared out his nostrils,
at her fall, he sputtered three syllables,
No God No, then fled out into the ashen gray rain
and looking back, for years, wide-eyed and pained
was glad that he had lived. Was glad; ashamed.

how quickly the night got dark

Uncurling up from my post,

as a quarter-time sloshing spring uncoiling,

to patrol and scope out,

like a half-sleeping spy out on the land,

out the glass, the dark beyond, and this empty house

that resonates on the rattle,

on the crunch, on the squeal, on the tickling cough

on the rattle-echo of this night,

up through the attics and the rafters and the roof,

down through the floor and foundation and deep, deep

into the dirt pulsing heart throbbing in time,

in resonant time, with this heart and the rattle,

with the radio static and the electric squeal

of crossing waves in the air, out there in the sky

like bright burning birds colliding and shattering

in concentric spheres of spark-feathers that crunch as they fall

in spirals, twistering down and teasing

at the throats of the dog, the cats, and me.