Round Baby Sees Skies Filled with Dark Circles
Baby’s worried
about
The Bomb
now.
On TV,
singing
in the
background,
the men
and ladies
with helmet
hair use words
like glasnost,
peristroyka,
détente.
Baby listens
to pop songs
about parents
in Russia who love
their children,
about red
balloons lifting
into the sky,
the opposite
of fallout.
Cartoon bombs
are always
round and black
with a white
cotton wick
that gets lit
futilely, somewhere
in the desert.
Baby knows,
because
of TV,
that this bomb,
The Bomb,
her bomb, takes
a different shape.
But in her mind
she sees
skies filled
with dark
circles, like
periods
at the
end of
sentences,
raining
down
down.
Fourth Transmission
Now that we are here,
Baby is afraid
chance may not guide.
Baby, you are a part light,
part weapons. Proceed
to deeply concerned.
In your existence, the destiny of Earth.
You must learn Confusion, Chaos and Untruth.
Learn the sun.
This is the voice of the planet as it passes
into disaster.
Sheila Squillante is the author of the collection BEAUTIFUL NERVE, as well as three chapbooks. Recent work has appeared in Waxwing, Copper Nickel, Indiana Review and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA program at Chatham University where she edits The Fourth River. She also serves as blog editor for Barrelhouse.