SADAKO (Translation)

enola gay mother
you are alone
you gave your son
to the air
and his plane
bird of ill omen
knows no joy
--belly of steel
that cradled the atomic little boy
across the whole pacific ocean––
in an act of war
that holds the abomination
of a blind sky god
prince of the air
who violates the earth
uranus it is your offspring
usurper who goes by many names
hiroshima nagasaki
bikini fukushima
mayapuri enewetak
nevada novaya zemlya

(for each one

sadako folds 

a paper crane

and threads it

as in times of yore

in a chain of colors)
uranus blinded by the light
of his own reason
takes the life
of the chaste sadako
while her father
with infinite care
gives her rice with green tea
delicious sadako tells him
delicious
uranus takes her life
but sadako knows to forgive him
we are all
sadako
we all
fold our paper cranes
and we thread them in the face of death
and if still
we have yet to thread them
we will thread them still
our paper cranes

--Lorena Wolfman © 2013