Hiroshimaites
I walked through a field of obsidian in Central Oregon, and thought of my old neighbor, Bud. He lived on his farm next to us, one hundred fifty miles from here, on the other side of the Cascade Range.
He had a small collection of arrowheads, elegantly chiseled, knife-sharp, and black as a moonless desert night. They may have come from this very field and wound up buried in the clay and loam of his.
The men who brought them there were arms traders of a sort, I suppose, bit players-no grand merchants of death. Bud had a bit part too, back in 1945 on Tinian, when the crew he was with eased Little Boy up into the belly of Enola Gay.
Today there are tiny, glass-like shards mixed in with sand and gravel just south of Hiroshima, not native to that place.
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Keith Hansen
Review by Paul Jones
Hiroshimaites takes Hansen into more complex territory by way of glassy obsidian used for arrowheads and knives. Pieces brought by native arms traders which then extends figuratively to Bud, who had helped bring death by loading the Enola Gay in 1945, and a different kind of black glass littering the ground. Heavy story told in a precise way.