Kokura

The city of Kokura was the primary target for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki 80 years ago on Aug. 9 at 11:02 a.m. Kokura was passed over that morning due to cloud cover and poor visibility.

Photo taken by Hiromichi Matsuda from the rooftop of the the Kawanami Kōgyō Shipyard in Kōyagi, Nagasaki, Aug. 9, 1945.

Kokura  

            The moon’s brightness—
             Does it know
             Where the bombing will be? 

                             — Santōka Taneda

That morning I woke understanding 
nothing and went to bed understanding 
the falling star and why it falls. 

It was nothing like the city of Troy. 
It was nothing like Achilles, Odysseus, 
his hollow Trojan horse. It was 

Kokura, the city we flew over
because of poor visibility, was it? 
How do we know when not to kill

for Agamemnon? Trick question. 
Had there been no tree of knowledge 
we’d have found another way to sin. 

Our physician, you see, doesn’t 
believe in stages. That’s why 
it’s difficult for him to sleep 

at night—a clown rolling sevens 
in the dark. How do we know 
he feels pain? We don’t. We know 

what’s most wounded 
in him. How can we tell? 
We’ve tasted what he makes.

After that we all concentrated 
on the sky, believing then praying
something unimaginable would save us.

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TFP IS A PROUD MEMBER OF THE IOWA WRITERS COLLABORATIVE

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