8.15 a.m.
And then God said, Let there be light
so warring man can see the way
for Little Boy, six times as bright
as sun, to liquidate the day.
The blast wave of the afterbirth
outstrips the gravitational force
at the very centre of the earth.
A fire-spark, hotter than the source
of solar power required for all
created life to thrive, consumes
the city in a flaming ball
of radiation from which fumes
rise heavenwards in a mushroom cloud.
The message pounded out is clear –
but does a bomb, however loud,
make sound inside a melted ear?