Reactor Four

A sestina for the workers of Chernobyl, many of whom gave their lives to save their people. Experimenting with fiddly verse forms, because I'm bored.

Reactor Four: A Sestina

 

Friends, listen: the truth

will seep out.

There is a wolf loping above me through the crisp leaves,

her children in her teeth.

I feel staccato pawprints, the bunching of her muscle

through the hard drum of the land.

 

I sang for my land

over the loudspeakers, my paper the Truth

and my army the world’s largest muscle.

When it flexed my pride whistled out

through my clenched teeth,

a song that never leaves

 

the heart, even as leaves

cover the graves of those who sacrificed all for the land.

Even as my skin grew thin and my teeth

loosened: there was no time for truth.

The water rose, the lamp went out,

and if only I had the muscle

 

then only I had the muscle.

The Premier leaves his office for a moment, but the supervisor leaves

his family for the depths, swimming out

towards death not for a land

or a people but a city, a person, a truth

you see only in a child’s bright eyes and strong teeth--

 

not these blame-machine teeth,

the sickness rending the nation's muscle,

politicos coaxing money out of the truth.

Who stays and who leaves,

where the aid craft can and can't land,

this means nothing. I wanted out,

 

but if I had refused, what place would out

ever be? My skull and teeth

are poison in their tomb, but my homeland

is the antidote, trees thrust up with nature’s stubborn muscle,

the ground skinned with sacred autumn’s leaves.

There was no time for truth,

 

only doing. Only muscle.

The world leaves

me to my silence. The wolf is the truth, the only truth.

Author's Note

Hello.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I am liking how you merge the wolves, nature, with the muscle of the nuclear plant...and how there is nothing at the end except the truth...that is portrayed in the form of the wolf.
and also how the land revives no matter what we do to it...it will outlast us.
really strong imagery in this.
j.

[syzygy]

You know, it's funny--if I could do it all over again, I would've picked pretty much any word in the English language other than muscle. But once you've gotten a few verses into a sestina, there you go, you're stuck with it...glad to hear someone thought it worked, though, thanks for the review!