Alpha Island, Western Australia

Thousands of secret years created this place

and now I can only stay an hour

due to one microsecond of rage.

The 1950s were still Australia’s childhood,

a warped chrysalis, and independence

was a schoolchild’s optimistic poetry,

a naked abstraction to dream about;

sixty kilotonnes ripped that doll to pieces

and the radioactive dust from its heart

floated in a fourteen-kilometre cloud

across the continent like a giant hand

knocking on every door to distribute toys.

Published in New Word Order