Ember Eyes
 
The soldier's hands quivered,
a newspaper rattled
between his wrinkled hands.
He lowered the page just far enough
for me to spy one clear eye burning.
 
   These Pakistanis, these Indians --
   they've no idea what they're saying.
   I was there, in Alamagordo,
   for the test called Trinity,
   when the sky caught fire,
   when that enormous eye, 
   God's eye,
   blinked open, shut.
   That's all it took for my face
   to burn red three miles away.
   They named the first bomb
   The Gadget, a firecracker
   compared to what we have today.
 
He raised a sweating glass of icewater
to his lips and sipped.
I could almost hear the steam.
 
   Once a year, every world leader
   should be flown out to the desert.
   Give them all dark goggles
   and zinc oxide for their skin.
   Set up a camera in the dark
   and use the fireball as a flash.
   Their group photo would look like mine --
   a chorus of blinding white balloons
   catching fire,
   each dotted with two dark nostrils
   and one big black oval mouth,
   screaming.
 
Scott Speck
06/03/2002