Gary Fincke

The Absolute

To have a tour guide is an absolute
No one disbelieves.  Everybody stays
On the sidewalks.  As if the earth were flat,
The abyss swarming with microsieverts.
For years now, Chernobyl has residents
Who have returned to acceptable risk,
The infamous reactor miles away,
The pair of unfinished ones paused beside
Cranes poisoned for a hundred centuries.It’s Pripyat where nobody chances
A souvenir, where an amusement park,
Nine days from opening, is forever
Poised to start Ferris wheel and bumper cars.

None of its 50,000 can come back,
Except, in April, for one day per year,
Something