Panic Grass and Feverfew

by Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

After a quiet flash: a second sun
rose and fell and flattened four square miles —

half–grown potatoes cooked in the earth,
odd–shaped shadows burned on stones —

twelve days later,
                     wildflowers would overtake
the epicenter’s remains.
                                  Sickle–senna

ruled next to goosefoot and yellow–eyed
bluets; Spanish bayonets and morning glories
grew near hairy–fruited bean.  Broad green
with mealy–white undersides, sword–like
leaves, stubby white rays, climbing vines,
pea–flowers enclosed in burs with hooked spikes:

a field stood swaying, where houses had been.
Neck–high wildflowers — where houses had been.

                       — after John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”