Russia tests its new weapon on ice-free land of the Arctic, 
its unmanned stealth power with radioactive waves
that could cause its coastline
to be uninhabitable for decades, 
that coastline of rising waters, melting ice. 
 
I remember seeing a therapist during the 80’s Cold War. 
I told the bearded old man I feared nuclear war. 
I did not tell him
my father’s clouded, disapproving eyes
            scared me and made me feel ashamed. 
I did not tell him
I cried every time I buried
            our cat’s carnage—baby rabbits, birds. 
I did not tell him
I had a naked man with a knife at my throat
            make me scream in a voice that was not mine. 
I did not tell him 
how fast the Geiger counter clicked when scanning
            the green shirt I wore after Chernobyl, 
            in Germany where Russian winds reached us. 
 
I just told him
about how I feared humankind would disappear. 
He told me it was an existential crisis. 
I never saw him again. 
 
13,890 total nuclear warheads in the world, 
a number of 
            cottonmouth 
            swollen feet 
            dreams of cold water in the dark
            lost rivers. 
 
Numbers are like birds
when there are so many—
how we can see the flock 
but the individual wings disappear from sight, 
too many to name anymore, 
like how a voice gets lost in a scream 
            or grass boxed into the color of green 
            or an introverted child lost in a crowd
 
or we name nuclear weapons out of gods—
Poseidon for me the white marble sculpture
in Vienna’s Schönbrunn’s gardens
in a fountain with waters
as clear as my eyes sometimes aren’t, 
as fresh as the salty sea isn’t. 
 
Above the rocky grotto he stands
in a shell-shaped chariot, 
trident in his hand, 
surrounded by nymphs, goddess Thetis, 
            sea horses, and Tritons. 
 
He looks like a father you could trust, 
who would pull you out of the waves
before they pummeled you
against sharp coral or ice.
 
Now I’m thinking of the Arctic
and all the lands I’ve never seen, 
how I cannot count them all, 
how I want my children to see them, 
ride sea-horses into a future they can count on
and forget about conquering Troy. 
 
No war will help us learn
how to breathe underwater.
                        

It wasn’t as if
we motored our way through when we needed to sleep
or our muscles constellated into barn-sour horses
or we didn’t kneel with the weight of heaven on our backs
or time seeped through our cracks to make us younger. 

It wasn’t as if
a ghost ship sailed white flags of surrender
or crocus blossoms learned camouflage
or April lost its keys from torn pockets of clouds
or we forgot how the fire bypassed our roof. 

We all do our best,
toss lapis lazuli runes to the wind, 
finger our bloodlines and efforts with swirling prints—
a son playing Hayden sonatas on the piano, 
a dream of climbing sand dunes with fathers, 

two sisters collecting cicada shells, 
a daughter riding Pacific waves, 
a cemetery in Memphis, ashes in the Danube, 
hounds unleashed to track our fate, 
a little girl falling

and our hubris collapsed and transformed, dense as seeds
we plant in a memory we refuse to embellish, 
as if we could unveil our eyes, 
uncloak, unmask how our vision spills
like a rising tide and a shore that lets it be.
                        

I always loved the men
with bullets lodged in their knees,
breath of cocaine and tobacco,
the ones who strutted at smokers
and knew how to play the aces in Blackjack,
who swiped Skittles for me from 7-11
and punched the boys who teased me. 
I loved the ones who scaled fences
and swam under moonlight in private lakes,
who fished and knew how to filet, 
every bone tossed on the dark earth, 
who could gut a deer and drink six beers
without toppling over or stumbling a bit,
the ones who dropped out of school
to race cars on the muddy back roads
and smoke in the woods under oak trees, 
who loved their moms so much
that they hid from her everything. 
 
These are the men I dream about, 
who reach out their hand to pull me
into trains that chug across the country, 
wheels metal on metal, 
homes shrinking in the distance
and the horses nuzzling through snow
to find that grass beneath, 
as we watch how the tracks
unravel for us.