Many, many years ago,
at a Goldwater rally:
A daughter of a union buster twirls a lock of golden hair. Across the room, a judge's son is wrapped around her finger. She glances a repulsed glance and exacts her gravity. Electrified, he thinks to himself "we have to be close enough for this force to effect us."
He collides with her
and the two discuss their Barrycenter:
"In your heart, you know he's right," he reads from a pin on her mohair sweater.
"It's just nice to meet another so like-charged,' she gleams.
"Together, we could power the stars," he croons.
United by the State, they became Mr. and Mrs. Nuclear.
*
The planet then was a violent, boiling fireball. The Nuclears felt quite star-crossed, the nightly news citing (nightly) a nation divided at their name.
"The American way of life in peril! We must build a solid foundation. We, the Pillars of Creation!" recited Mr. Nuclear.
A shudder, an eruption. From deep inside the young Nuclear body, a strikingly photogenic Sun emerged first, followed by his glowing sister, Moon.
*
The son, born of some stellar explosion, was the light of the Nuclear lives. The faint young Sun promised to shine brighter each day. But soon the wayward son began to disappear at night, stumbling through the garden each morning.
"I floated across the ocean in a golden bowl," the Sun explained, but the Nuclears’ nerve wreckage found no fix in their son's excuses.
They followed him once, to the edge of world, watched him descend.
"Every dusk, I am ready for death," the Sun cried.
They could no longer look into his face.
Moon wears a different face each day. She wonders if this makes her featureless, wanders low in the afternoon sky, waiting to be seen.
Some evenings she's dressed all in white playing hostess, making the rounds with a tray of sugar cookies. Her hips move just like those she came from.
Her mother too was a performer, a glittering goddess.
She drives the boys crazy, bathes in the lake.
Many have died from not protecting themselves from her.
This dark side of Moon still wears the footprint of a man, still bears his flag.
*
And Mrs. now with cancer and Mr. attached to a tube, there were ancient urges unanswerable and modern pressures mounting.
