Final Poem of the Summer

This is the last poem I wrote for the Bread Loaf Poetry Workshop. The professor assigned us to write about a public event. I chose to write about Chernobyl and the effect it had across Europe. My family arrived in Austria just months before the explosion and was among those anxiously waiting for the plume to pass. I was only a year old at the time, so I learned about the disaster from the stories my father told. It has become a powerful reminder to me that environmental issues know no borders. 

Chernobyl

for my father

It was one of few threats

that made good

and floated freely

from East to West 

over the ideological curtain 

into sandboxes

and psyches. 

The news rumored rain,

and the Austrians

scanned the sky,

spoke in low voices,

said, 

Boiling won’t do any good.

Buy mineralwasser.

Each slight headache

was suspect,

and thousands of miles away, 

firefighters lay ill,

shitting confusion

with constellations in their eyes 

that burned unnatural.

Weeks later, 

the playground reopened

and children tied the red plastic ribbons

that read verboten

to the tails of their kites

that flapped high 

in the fleeting cloudless sky.