Little Boy
by Gerda Stevenson
Little Boy is on his way, snug
in the metal womb of Enola Gay,
all of his components prepped,
but not quite ready yet –
his system fine-tuned only after take-off –
safety first for his birthing crew.
The pilot gives full throttle:
Do it for me, Momma!
Overloaded, Enola Gay
eats up the whole runway –
Momma, come ON! –
and lifts into night;
six hours to go;
lieutenant and weaponeer
grope in torchlight
along the portside catwalk
to the pitch-black bay,
armed with Thy might
in the name of Jesus Christ –
the chaplain’s prayer before flight
that nailed their mission to the cross
and gave it a tail wind of righteousness;
and he’s primed now – no going back –
Little Boy, nestling there,
like the baby saviour
in the virgin’s amniotic sac,
carried into that bright morning
on the last, steep climb
to bombing altitude,
and then
let go;
falling,
six miles
in 44 seconds,
falling
to Hiroshima below,
where someone called Kazuko
lifts her child from his cot,
the River Ota outside, its seven streams
full and tranquil – slack water at high tide,
while high above in cloud-flecked blue
Enola Gay banks into her getaway –
a nine-mile dash – and makes it
by a hair’s breadth, chased by shimmers
from a ghostly flash;
barely born, Little Boy has made his mark:
lit ten thousand suns at every window,
then snuffed them out, shocked eyeballs
from sockets into palms, skin to rags –
futile surrender flags in sudden twilit limbo –
lungs and throats a desert drought,
bodies burning at four thousand Celsius
from the inside out.
Author’s note: Little Boy was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. Little Boy was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. The accompanying observation planes were named The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil.
Editor’s note: Gerda Stevenson’s latest book is Quines, read about it here.
