How to Dismantle an Atomic Mom

Anno Sandlin

my mother unclasps her thermos

and sips on the nuclear contents

enriched uranium with extra creamer

as the steam settles I tell her

“mom, your favorite TV host…”

“whom god chose”

“yeah… whom god chose…”

she pauses to put on her glasses

stares at me through the 

bifocal bottom

blinks three times

coughs a smoke ring

“he might not…”

“might not what?”

she starts humming to herself

shaking, praying

stands up and goes to the kitchen

starts to reheat some toxic waste

“you know that school where five kids died?”

she blesses her own heart

“they’re up in heaven now”

finding the words feels like

scraping paint off collapsing walls

“one of them wasn’t saved— by uh- jesus”

she’s stunned, her knees wobbly

“how do you know? they couldn’t talk yet?”

“they couldn’t talk yet. couldn’t pray”

“couldn’t get baptized neither?”

she takes her glasses off

wipes green sweat off her hairline

“now imagine that”

“i’m imagining” she tilts her head up

“but multiplied by thousands, far away”

she winces, clutches her forehead

“oh!!!!”

collapses onto the floor

and spills out into a mom puddle

i soak her up with some rags

and wring her out onto her favorite sofa

she spills a bit onto the good book