Two Poems by Le Hinton

  Hiroshima

            It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered.

                        — July 25, 1945 from the diary of Harry S. Truman

At 7 a.m. the siren

cried  ̶  lonely and insistent  ̶

unsettling a new born mother

and sparrows in flight.

At 8, there was no calm

for Toshiko in the silence

of the all-clear lie.

At 8:15 and from 30,000

feet above, a Little Boy fell

into the future toward pristine arms.

8:15:44 flashed so swiftly that

80,000 lives

did not pass in front of

80,000 pairs of eyes.

If annihilation knew respite,

Toshiko could have smelled the scent

of Hiroki’s seared black hair,

heard his murmur at her breast.

If even the smallest of gods had mercy,

Toshiko could have whispered

a prayer into his tiny ears

before the shredding of her lungs,

before the rupture of his drums,

before their bones crackled in the fire.

If her sockets still held eyes,

she could have witnessed the precise

moment when the sparrows fell

back to the earth.

First Day of School, 1958

On the playground, the great white sharks pull

knives from their pockets with gazes

            sharp enough to shape

                        (an old man's) nightmares. They press

the points against the belly of the new Black boy.

Their laughs rimmed with incisors.

                        He prays for the National Guard

                                    he's seen on television

as his 5-year-old eyes fill.

In the school bathroom

they spin him from the urinal;

            roll him on his back.

                        Confirm the brownness

over

                  all            his          skin.

Later his teacher notes on his temporary permanent record

that he never laughs,

            wonders why he takes everything

                                                                                                personally,

                        decides that he can't take a

                                                            joke.





Le Hinton is the author of five poetry collections including, most recently, The Language of Moisture and Light. His work has been selected to appear in The Best American Poetry 2014.