Poetry |
A Book Report*
by Kaaren Strauch Brown
August 26, 1986
A mushroom floats to heaven,
scattering its spores as hell erupts down below.
A minor accident, nothing to worry about,
no one to blame,
perhaps a careless technician.
Scientists talk, liquidators die,
a city’s children shuffle through deadly dust.
Don’t tell, it’s all right.
2018
New Safe Confinement.
Time to bury Reactor Number Four.
Ukraine, 5% of territory contaminated.
Belarus, 23% of territory contaminated.
Half-life—Cesium-137, thirty years.
Time’s up.
Half-life—Plutonium-239, 24,000 years.
Where does human history end?
Chernobyl Tour—Чернобыль-ТУР
See the diversity and richness
of the Chernobyl zone,
derelict hospitals and kindergartens.
Only three-hundred dollars.
Includes Pripyat, the Pompeii of the North.
Be the first of your friends
to visit the future.
Health insurance required.
A mushroom floats to heaven,
scattering its spores as hell erupts down below.
A minor accident, nothing to worry about,
no one to blame,
perhaps a careless technician.
Scientists talk, liquidators die,
a city’s children shuffle through deadly dust.
Don’t tell, it’s all right.
2018
New Safe Confinement.
Time to bury Reactor Number Four.
Ukraine, 5% of territory contaminated.
Belarus, 23% of territory contaminated.
Half-life—Cesium-137, thirty years.
Time’s up.
Half-life—Plutonium-239, 24,000 years.
Where does human history end?
Chernobyl Tour—Чернобыль-ТУР
See the diversity and richness
of the Chernobyl zone,
derelict hospitals and kindergartens.
Only three-hundred dollars.
Includes Pripyat, the Pompeii of the North.
Be the first of your friends
to visit the future.
Health insurance required.
*Plokhy, Serhii (2018). Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe. New York: Basic Books.
About Kaaren Strauch Brown
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