i’ve used a bone saw to remove the skull plate of a whitetail buck
the crown a five by six in opposition and alignment not unlike
apathetic brooding hateful rodlike fathers
or frenetic bipolar mothers who grasp at control to keep from falling
the do nothings and the hammerheads marry me o hear me they say
obey me me me me sons and daughters fractured mothers shattered fathers 
their sons and daughters generating murder 

manner of injury known by distribution
in throttling curved abrasions made by fingernails on the neck 
they walk through my door staring dead-eyed into the next world 

their splintered faces splitting the nuclei producing collisions
igniting the suicide engine with unknown binding energy
traces detected environmentally worldwide we blame them yes us
even as the deer still walk down from the mountains in the evening to drink 

                                                                 iii.10 
                                                                 — for Hannah Arendt 

Shann Ray | Atomic Theory 432, iii.11
Contents | Mudlark No. 64 (2018)