Marshall Islands, Bikini Atoll, between 1946 and 1958. The United States detonated 23 nuclear devices. The inhabitants of the atoll were relocated, left to starve on another island, finally came back. And then the women started experiencing miscarriages, stillbirths and having children with genetic abnormalities. Just the beginning of the story of these people. This poem is about this disaster. About this still dead island. About how people’s lives can be wasted. Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, a Marshallese poet and climate warrior, is fighting for things to change. Her poem is a hymn to this lost island. It drew out uncontrollable tears from somewhere in the middle of my body.
“Then you became testing ground. Nine nuclear weapons consumed you, one by one by one, engulfed in an inferno of blazing heat. You became crater, an empty belly. Plutonium ground into a concrete slurry filled your hollow cavern. You became tomb. You became concrete shell. You became solidified history, immoveable, unforgettable.”