She finally moved from Fukushima
fled its failed, toxic nuclear plant
I wasn’t close to her,
don’t want to be close to her

I get nervous when she moves toward me, arms wide
with a smile unnaturally bright
like the ladies who painted radium on watch dials
and licked their brushes to keep them pointy

I don’t want to love her
don’t want to be inside her
No means no

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. His new poetry collection was published in 2019, The Arrest of Mr Kissy Face. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.

More work from Mitch, including his Inky Interview here.