"Mike" Test by Tyler Mills

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend November 10, 2014   “Mike” Test   Tyler Mills

I was going to write about a crescent of honeydew melon. An artist told me   she paints grids when she isn’t certain how to begin. A grid of steel   stores nuclear fuel below the surface of pools in temporary rooms   with red railings. I glanced at one image, then checked my email, my nightshade   tank top wet against the dip in my spine you might like to touch   and say, Stop. Have a glass of water. There once was a structure three-stories tall   built on an island Japan surrendered. This building was a bomb.   At its center, liquid hydrogen filled a thermos. We nicknamed it after an angel   appearing in the Bible, the Torah, and the Qur’an. Or maybe the name could have come   from a football player of the Fifties we might remember on Trivia Night.   I think how hammers strike the thinnest wires inside a piano. Hard.   Once, we evacuated the coral shore my grandfather flew over   in a B-17—the typed label of his photo half torn. The Department of the Interior   Master Plan shows where the people will live. I swallow vomit after watching the island wart into an orange bulb. Just before, birds glanced off the shimmering water.            Copyright © 2014 by Tyler Mills. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘Mike Test’ refers to the first true hydrogen bomb detonation. Part of Operation Ivy, this test took place on November 1, 1952, and vaporized the island of Elugelab in the Enewetak Atoll.” —Tyler Mills   Tyler Mills is the author of Tongue Lyre (Southern Illinois University Press, 2013). She teaches at the University of Illinois-Chicago and lives in Chicago. Most Recent Book by Mills   Tongue Lyre (Southern Illinois University Press, 2013) "Adjectives of Order" by Alexandra Teague "Poem for Japan" by Matthew Zapruder "Phantom Noise" by Brian Turner Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038