Atomsite

desert as sun's symptom. desert as origin.desert as half-truth: whose dreamscapewere you raised in? my desert lies close to

yet separate from my mother's. their sandsare different colors. mine's where the bombwas. hers, the one the horse hearsed

out of, decades later, lacking its blue-headedrider. land handed downlike some ancient blanket she'd hang

in the arid air to dry. the signalto the neighbors every morningyou survived. she shared it with my father.

desert, I mean. and bedlinen.they shared whatever they weregiven. faced with nightly extreme

drops in temperature, even unsocialanimals seek shelter in their species. huddletogether. go to whichever threat

seems least. I was not yet what they heldin common. then suddenly, I formed.from what I remember, I had nothing

to do with it. one place becomesanother. its opposite. desert as story. desertas final destination. desert as stand-in

for the real reason. sand shookinto my interior. inseparable as shadowand likewise unrecognizable. a souvenir:

the diner cup filled with silicafrom the missile range's whitedunes, due south of the site where

the first blast occurred. the spotmy parents used to walk in thought,believing in an earth which was wholly

theirs. by the time I took my first stepsinto self-consciousness, we went backon vacation. a visit to the air and space

museum down the road from my unknowablefamily's ranch at the edge of that expansivewaste. the replica of a lethal steel husk

burst into double echo when I slapped it,laughing. I was too young to know exactlywhere I was. desert as center.

desert as actor. desert as imageof its aftermath. still: life left to distractthe passing lizard's iris. wreckage

itself was not a part of this exhibit. anecdoteof the accidental element, its half-lifeslide into pure radiation. it wouldn't last.

a sign nearby: light from the testwas bright enough to blind a horseone hundred miles off from the explosion.