All winter the manatee gather
at the hearth of water
warmed by atomic rupture.
Happy sea cows luxuriating
in the outflow of soothed reactors,
kept calm by Crystal River bathing.
Splitting matter makes energy:
could create power,
or perhaps a bomb.
The nucleus is rent asunder
by an accelerated neutron,
electrons sent into orbit,
protons reconfigured into new elements,
and the result
is always less than the whole
Loss of mass = gain of energy,
waves radiating out from the trauma
of being torn apart.
I thought that submitting my matter
to pastoral direction
would soothe and cool
an already overheated existence.
Instead,
inhibited, resigned, and cut off,
my nucleus is crushed
to particles of my former self.
I can feel the loss of mass,
no table to celebrate joy,
energy radiates from the wreckage.
I could boil a river with rage,
reduce this temple to dust and ash,
cascading waves of reactivity,
or will I be gentled
in cooling baths of living water
surrounded by bobbing manatee?
Splitting matter makes energy,
could create power,
or perhaps a bomb.
