Pearl Harbour
After Jacques Gaucheron
In Hiroshima there are many pearl harbours
burning in waters of survivors eyes and I have
watched her oysters prise open through grief,
a pale glaucoma where the photographed dot
explodes that day in the grief linished pupils.
In Hiroshima there were many boats on fire
floating in the six rivers like Viking burials,
thousands of rags anchored to the old place
by limbs caught by trees rigor-mortis, did they
never want to leave this city of water and fire.
In Hiroshima they harvest pearls in the inland sea
and some use these spent shells for soup bowls or
or ashtrays, but some hold the tale to their ears and
hear the dead whispering to those who drank them,
I am a shadow that once cast a boy, hiding in the open.
Antony Owen is from Coventry, England. He is the author of three poetry collections by Heaventree Press and Pighog Press and is known for writing poems addressing national identity and the consequences of conflict. His work has appeared in several magazines throughout the world including a translated anthology of war poems by Poetry International Europe in 2015 called Steden Schuilen Nuit.