PLATTSBURGH: 1973 Birth-throes, a lost motel where the woman knelt and died. The TV was playing Tora! Tora! Tora! when the B-52s took off. The clouds parted occluding sight. The forests parted. People fled like deer. The boats took to water in a sudsy wave. There were three kinds of memory buried in ash. They sifted the next day, picking at the scab. No more nights, you couldn't see the sun. Another kind of brightness. The towel changed colour as the bombs dropped. Fraser Sutherland |