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Little Boy<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Gerda Stevenson<\/em><\/p>\n Little Boy is on his way, snug six hours to go; and he\u2019s primed now \u2013 no going back \u2013 barely born, Little Boy has made his mark: \u00a0Author’s note: Little Boy was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. Little Boy was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. The accompanying observation planes were named The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil.<\/em><\/p>\n
in the metal womb of Enola Gay,
all of his components prepped,
but not quite ready yet \u2013
his system fine-tuned only after take-off \u2013
safety first for his birthing crew.
The pilot gives full throttle:
Do it for me, Momma!
Overloaded, Enola Gay
eats up the whole runway \u2013
Momma, come ON! \u2013
and lifts into night;<\/p>\n
lieutenant and weaponeer
grope in torchlight
along the portside catwalk
to the pitch-black bay,
armed with Thy might
in the name of Jesus Christ \u2013
the chaplain\u2019s prayer before flight
that nailed their mission to the cross
and gave it a tail wind of righteousness;<\/p>\n
Little Boy, nestling there,
like the baby saviour
in the virgin\u2019s amniotic sac,
carried into that bright morning
on the last, steep climb
to bombing altitude,
and then
let go;
falling,
six miles
in 44 seconds,
falling
to Hiroshima below,
where someone called Kazuko
lifts her child from his cot,
the River Ota outside, its seven streams
full and tranquil \u2013 slack water at high tide,
while high above in cloud-flecked blue
Enola Gay banks into her getaway \u2013
a nine-mile dash \u2013 and makes it
by a hair\u2019s breadth, chased by shimmers
from a ghostly flash;<\/p>\n
lit ten thousand suns at every window,
then snuffed them out, shocked eyeballs
from sockets into palms, skin to rags \u2013
futile surrender flags in sudden twilit limbo \u2013
lungs and throats a desert drought,
bodies burning at four thousand Celsius
from the inside out.<\/p>\n