Ray McNiece in Moonlit
Atomic Milk
Out west, in the science-fiction
turned fact late nineteen-fifties,
outside Las Vegas, city of neon
gambling and T&A diversions,
in the salt flats of ancient oceans,
mushrooms boomed and bloomed.
Downwind across rolling pastures
of the Midwest, cows munched
the green, green grass of home,
glowing through stomachs to udders,
as every mother drank extra milk
with post-war babies on the way.
Experts admitted it was better
after-all to breast feed than use
the formula my sisters drank.
So I sucked milk mixed with
strontium 90 and cesium 133
soaking into bones and skull.
In my cold war cradle they cried
for more, drinking what will
live half-lives longer than life,
stronger stuff than even death,
their caskets time capsules future
generations will fear to open.