The Unexploded Ordnance Bin
       

our son found the hollow shell
snub-nosed & finned
& looking like an Acme cartoon bomb
where we raked for clams
he wanted to keep it
& we wanted to let him

even the old oysterman wanted
to let him    but we'd read about
the shell found & kept
for three weeks by a boy
in Oregon before the powder
dried & it went off

we took a few minutes
to snap photos of our son,
an ordinary boy then,
putting the shell under his sister's pillow
& pretending to launch it
at the foods that made him gag

at the police station
the desk sergeant crooked
a thumb towards the dune
with its big metal bin & warning sign
once a month    he said    we set them off
& it really lights the place up

it's too small to be seen
the gene causing autism    but I imagine it
anyway with snub nose & fins
& powder waiting to dry    first words
blown off & away like the fingers
of that Oregon boy

whose mom's grief I used to feel safe from
who let her son keep his bomb
in ignorance or faith strong as
my own caution that led in the end
to the same spectacular
dismemberment of the future

& I wonder what it would look like
the bin for safe disposal of genes
that can ruin children
& I think maybe it's my own body or rather
the body without children
or rather the body that's lucky

or belonging to someone still living
in ignorance & improbable faith
or maybe the bin is the world
before war & original sin
when to be human
was all promise & radiance

unwinding dawn mudflats
into long shining ribbons    pink
as a newborn baby's gums
& elsewhere a family
in a warm illuminated room
is eating steamed clams

or just any ordinary dinner
as if it weren't going to blow all to hell
any second    all those bright dreams
lit up like tracer fire
over the dark dunes    like the Perseids
only not at all    like the Perseids

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Copyright © 2019 Rebecca Foust All rights reserved
from Birmingham Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission