atomograd-凯发k8官网

atom city, ukraine

i. prypiat funfairthe locked ferris wheel arcs
against the horizon,a honey ^1
2 its golden gills.suspended
from ³ cogs,the cars seed
the ash trees belowwith powdered ⁴.
beeswax capsulesloft through dead air
like irradiated ⁵.

ii. worm wood foresta ⁶ of light
⁷ sphagnum ⁸
from the cold bark
of the nuclear forest.the oak ⁹ steamed;
the black ¹⁰ flushed ¹¹.
hornbeams grew gigantic,
roots and trunks coiling like double yolks.each ¹² pine, each saxifrage
and small-flowered bitter,
was bulldozed and buried
in a vast ¹³ grave.the half-life soil
silvered
under its ¹⁴
of ¹⁵ atoms;
a corncrake ¹⁶
the ¹⁷ stream
for pike, its ¹⁸
a carpenter’s rasp.

iii. the pierpatched ^{20 21} sideways
into the phosphorescent river,their ²² black bison,
scabbed with radiation.the ¹⁹ captains ²³
long ago, pressure-dazed, slippingthrough the ²⁴ zone
like wild boar. what ²⁵, now:cucumber shoots drilling
the greenhouse glass, storksnesting in the melted ²⁶,
the schoolhouse a ²⁷ of scalded textbooks,everywhere the quivering taste
of pins, as if a hedgehog quilled with aluminumhad invaded the dusty samovars
of each sealed concrete ²⁸.the barges wait some final passage
like latten ferries ²⁹ in the river styx.