Mason Klesel

I Was Four at the Time

I was four at the time.

I sat by the window

and listened to the cicadas chirp

off in the distance.

A mushroom cloud rose above the city.

Smoke and fire crept up the sides

of the mountains.

the purple grey smoke from afar

had a red core.

It burned everything inside it.

The people who survived were bare

skin blackened

faces down

arms bent forward

and along the road they walked like ghosts.