the kiss of Tosca!

this is the kiss of Tosca!

they were all dead by 3 o'clock on a fine afternoon 

no one expected so many to be gone so soon 

in the early dawn children at breakfast a mother busy with her knife in hand: 

silent Enola Gay high above in her silver chariot drunk on hot jazz 

heavenly wine stored deep inside her belly 

her horses pulling onward into the great wide open 

Morta listened for a cry from the singing diva 

wailing above the home of 100,000 deaths like Roosevelt

fatherly in his easy chair

rationalizing

behind a somber podium 

the great white hall silent behind his back 

his skinny hard tires black 

and rolling 

towards the Manhattan Project not in New York City anymore

then Truman with his hand on the pen 

writing the white lie which would open the box of hell 

and offer howling ghosts 

screaming in full throat 

in mushroom cloudy smoke

the balled fist reaching ever upwards

hot exhaust on the crisp desert air 

Trinity 

like a horrible nightmare 

burning every migrating butterfly into a dream shadow

blooming cactus flowers falling to desert sand

the barbs remaining sharp

and ashes like dusty tears  

and the experimental little boy of all big bombs falling indiscriminate 

targeting and tumbling and preparing to explode over a huddled mass

soft people awake or asleep, restless or comforted

their suddenly revealed skeletons boiled and basted and bombed 

the troubled disbelief 

a sudden cry

thinking the unthinkable 

and to Gods or spirits they called and begged in anguished Japanese, 

moaned on the currents of flaming air

staggering beyond the city limits

past the graves of dead gardens,

what? 

why did we have to die? great Earth were we not great, too? 

will there be a second chance? any chance? 

what do i do? 

am i the butterfly or the flower? 

or a passing memory or a missing hour?