- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Radium Girls
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Written for the Historical Persons Challenge on the PF&D Forum. Thanks to all those there who offered feedback that (hopefully) polished this poem.
Radium Girls
Marie Curie was the first,
those searching eyes;
pitchblende fingers forcing
open an atomic box.
Pandora with a promethean will,
let your glow bathe a new century
like the luminescent hands
on an Undark clock,
ticking away while radium girls
poison themselves beneath
with fine-tipped brushes
worked to a delicate point
by neon-green lips and
phosphorescent tongues,
admiring their luminous eyelids
and glow-in-the-dark fingernails
as they smile like schoolgirls
holding their hands toward
the sky to shield their faces
as the world ends in a
white-hot instant on a
clear Hiroshima morning.
- COMMENTS
greenmountaineerover 8 years agoI like both versions Sean. I do think the revision works better without the last line in the original. The subtle irony gives it a feel of something surreal, but, of course, it was very real.
