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.