Our series of poetry excerpts continues with a poem by Tyler Mills from her new book, Hawk Parable, a fascinating verse consideration of the atomic age. From test to terror, Mills unfolds the dizzying destruction of a world, cindered and then forgotten. In this poem, laughter precedes the “sudden / sunset,” a pungent “tangerine” unleashed on the landscape. Connie Francis is the soundtrack to yet another test—which, like the others, remains surprising in its violence.
“Declassified Test Film”
They eat close to the surf,
laughing as water un-combs
plum threads
from a surface that flickers
quickly in and out of
sunflowers.
I wait for the sudden
sunset, tangerine, sun-
less as it blooms.
One of the soldiers has a question.
He rubs his nose with his thumb.
Is it that silver
speck up there?
He’s in the cotton white
t-shirt you like to wear.
I fold your sleeves in a mess and press them
to my face—your stink
in the boat
seam of fabric.|
“Where the Boys Are” by Connie Francis
drones from a radio speaker, her breath
mingling with the gold-
painted mesh.
They dig their feet in the sand
peaking here and there like buttercream.
Suddenly, the song
stupidly playing
breaks out
of shape, and everyone
flinches
then stares
right at the sky.
“Declassified Test Film,” from Hawk Parable by Tyler Mills. Copyright © 2019 by The University of Akron Press. Published and reprinted by permission of The University of Akron Press.
