Tonight's Poet Corner: Sonnet Solstice #244
Twenty Minutes
by Belinda Roddie
Twenty minutes before the atom bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima, I sat in
the cockpit of my plane, the glassy dome
concealing my screams. I was only then
eighteen years old, new to war, and consumed
by a panic attack while trying to
fly the patrol. I witnessed the mushroom
cloud swell in front of me, the sky, once blue,
going gray and red from the inferno.
I managed to fly back to base, and as
I sat crying into my hands, I know
my friend from school sat beside me, a mask
of stoicism on his face. He pulled
me into his arms, his hair lit with gold.
by Belinda Roddie
Twenty minutes before the atom bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima, I sat in
the cockpit of my plane, the glassy dome
concealing my screams. I was only then
eighteen years old, new to war, and consumed
by a panic attack while trying to
fly the patrol. I witnessed the mushroom
cloud swell in front of me, the sky, once blue,
going gray and red from the inferno.
I managed to fly back to base, and as
I sat crying into my hands, I know
my friend from school sat beside me, a mask
of stoicism on his face. He pulled
me into his arms, his hair lit with gold.
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