PLATTSBURGH: 1973





Birth-throes, a lost motel
where the woman knelt and died.
The TV was playing Tora! Tora! Tora!
when the B-52s took off.
The clouds parted
occluding sight.
The forests parted.
People fled like deer.
The boats took to water
in a sudsy wave.
There were three kinds of memory
buried in ash.
They sifted the next day,
picking at the scab.
No more nights,
you couldn't see the sun.
Another kind of brightness.
The towel changed colour
as the bombs dropped.



Fraser Sutherland