Consider the young cheerleader

who stood beside a blue swimming pool

with other teenagers

waiting for a nuclear blast on the horizon

by which she timed her best

Herkie jump into the air

while everyone applauded.

The radios spoke into the whorl

of each listening ear

saying that America is most secure

as the sky unzipped itself

and a light more infinite

than its container

bloomed toward Las Vegas.

A hundred detonations in the atmosphere.

Nine hundred and twelve below ground

where the cheerleader’s cobalt bones

now radiate

beneath the sterile dirt

seventy years into their half-life.

Her toes are pointed.

Her arms make an X across her breast.

After all this time it appears

she is still rising

midway toward a leap

just before her body

leaves the earth

and arrives at air.