I lean against the railings, restless on a long, hot day,
determined not to make my absence felt,
and watch a young girl passing by, her sandals in her hand;
the low dull ache, from feet that punch the street
on searing summer’s tarmac, etched upon her face.

She glances up and looks beyond me, through me,
up towards the bare-boned dome above my head,
its curving spines that crown still-standing bricks;
proud remnants of an old Hiroshima.
Her eyes flick down to catch the willow weeping over me,
then heavenwards as if she wonders why I would sit here
where I am close enough to see the layered make-up on her face
and smell her: acid sweetness almost drowning out her sweat.

I simply lean and watch and wonder, had her parents thought of her
back when a "LittleBoy" was born to Enola Gay?
Did they hear about a blast, focussed by the hills, a strike
that burnt kimono patterns onto skin and flattened everything?

Here and now there is a man who loiters, coming close to murmur in her ear.
The deal's already done, they both know why she's here;
he guides her by the arm, away from me, this normal-seeming man.
Does she release him with her young, pinched face and slender limbs,
or does that face live on for him and stalk his thoughts?
She’ll take the money either way, and give her silent dreams for him to rend
and move along, to find the next, still grasping hope.