Nuclear Reservation<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Driving past security my father tipped
\nhis hat at the guard
\nwho waved him on. The badge
\non my father’s chest worn
\nnot to name authority but
\nto measure exposure, the point
\nat which his daily risk<\/p>\n
might trip him up. When he drove the hills
\ntoward home the desert turned
\nunder him, sage and sand
\nground to dust, rocks overtaken by a violet glow.
\nAll the while minerals
\ntouched us, particulates
\ncombing the air and marking us<\/p>\n
invisibly changed. In the dust storm
\nthe desert stuck to me like silt, a line
\ndrawn around my mouth and nose.
\nHis back to me, his face
\npressed into the receiver
\nmy father said the guards had orders
\nto shoot to kill. What they held<\/p>\n
behind them was a question
\nof life and death:
\nthe rods delicately working
\nat the purist’s calculations and the tower
\ncasting itself clean across the river, ore
\nreduced to powder, a golden substance
\ndiffusible as breath.<\/p>\n
“Nuclear Reservation” originally appeared in Particles on the Wall. \u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Nancy Dickeman<\/a> grew up in Richland and is a co-founder and co-curator of Particles on the Wall<\/em>,<\/a> a multidisciplinary exhibit exploring Hanford history and nuclear issues. Nancy\u2019s poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, <\/a>The Seattle Review,<\/a> River City, <\/em>the anthology March Hares: The Best of Fine Madness<\/em>,<\/a> and in other publications. Her essays appear in The<\/em> Seattle PI, Common Dreams<\/em> and OCEAN Magazine<\/em>. She has recently completed her first novel manuscript, Green Run, White Train<\/em>. Nancy holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nuclear Reservation Driving past security my father tipped his hat at the guard who waved him on. The badge on my father’s chest worn not to name authority but to measure exposure, the point at which his daily risk … Continue reading