Each violet has veined petals with a dark center that seems more like the pupil of an eye—altogether, Violets are rolling their collective 'eyes.' They are laughing. The chiming of Multiball dings in the background. The sound of their laughter is growing louder, but then it fades. She turns around, and Violets are gone—their departure feeling more of a surprise than their arrival. Clare is left smelling waxy floors and a spilled lime cola, the ping of metal balls clanking together at the arcade—

Oppenheimer, the movie, will not be shown in Japan. The Japanese perspective is missing. The lack of racial diversity is so bad that it will bring up the issue of whether a movie where all on-screen characters are white meets the inclusion standards for the Oscars. Somehow, it will still win.

In the movie, Oppenheimer steps over a large, torso-shaped fragment of carbon. Moviegoers contemplate the neutrality of complete destruction as if they are all-powerful, distanced from the human impact: “I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.”

In the Bhagavad Gita—only seven verses earlier—Arjuna prays to the god: “Prasida, Prasida.” Prasida, the name given to her by Amma, the hugging saint of Kerala. Her new, beautiful name. Feminine, elegant, strong, her new name is everything that Lisa was not. It means, Ruler of the universe, be pleased with me. An even better translation is, power animating the world, do not destroy me. Oppenheimer must have known what prasida means; he studied Sanskrit. Two nights before Trinity, he recited a passage from the Gita. After reading a list of ancient, battle-related things, which we can only assume is a metaphor for the first detonation of an atomic bomb, he ends with, “The good deeds a man has done before defend him.”

Okay, Oppie. You do you. Battles used to be sensationalized, as noted in the Gita; the phenomenon is nothing new:

“December 30, 1890. Omaha Daily Bee 

A Bloody Battle — The Seventh Cavalry Encounters the Indians on Porcupine Creek — Tomahawked in the Forehead by a Treacherous Red Assailant — A Long List of Killed and Wounded — Big Foot’s Entire Band Almost Exterminated by the Soldiers — Exciting Scenes at Pine Ridge Agency Camp on Wounded Knee, S.D.”

Killing Indians described as exciting. Who is the savage here?

Pearfat Multiball: Sticky-sweet, waxed floors of an arcade, bells and chimes signaling your high score, a sip of cola. Lime cola - Patchouli - Sparking Metal - Waxy Cedarwood

Prasida Clare Newman (they/them) puts language under pressure. Their poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Welter, and their nonfiction in Passages North, The Argyle, and Lake Effect. Their current obsession is Cycladic figures. Find them at www.pclarenewman.com.