Ground Zero - shock, carnage, silence
Dreams lying flat, their branches brittle
Broken in scorched scapes
Ground Zero plus five - no dream alive
Hopes spiraled from their once sure destiny
Buried in a gray arena
Ground Zero plus ten - resurrection
Self-titled Survivors growing sprigs
Breathing the dirty air
The Outpost - dare they claim victory
Is the horizon safe to glance at
with all its brightness and color
And Beyond - Its name is Future
Not looking back,
We call it Fragile
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Author Notes
In above-ground nuclear testing, measurements of devastation are taken at many points: Ground zero is point of impact, GZ plus 5 miles, GZ plus 10 miles, the "outpost", etc. My poem is melding the language of a nuclear blast with the initial trauma of family members in divorce and later in time, how they are healing. (The distance of miles in the blast is the distance of time after the divorce).
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