Jill McDonough

TESTICLES AT TRINITY, THE ATOMIC TESTING SITE

Trinity, the atomic testing site, is open one day
a year. So we stay in a Socorro Super 8, eat green chile
cheeseburgers three meals out of four. We sing don’t want
no scrubs to scrub oak and tumbleweed, get up early, get
in line. We drive through the White Sands Missile Range;
men with guns say don’t take any pictures and I say
okay but I lie. It’s my country, I tell Josey, shrugging,
breaking the law, imagining each person in each RV
around us saying pretty much the same thing. If you’re
wondering who goes to Trinity, the atomic testing site, the one
day a year they are open, it’s us. Also a lot of white guys
with Geiger counters we start calling Geiger guys. They are so
stoked to find trinitite, pick it up with their bare hands, put it
in the pockets of pleated khakis, right down next to their balls.
Trinitite is illegal. Trinitite was a mistake, a sort of bonus.
About to blow up the first atom bomb, some thought it might
ignite the atmosphere, burn the whole planet down. But
fuck it, right? Let’s find out! Which, isn’t that just so
us? But god—knock, breathe, shine; break, blow, burn—was
merciful, gave us a new element instead: Alamogordo glass,
atomsite, trinitite. White sand and really high heat. And with
this second chance what did we go and do? We made jewelry,
souvenirs. At the museum you can see necklaces on women, think
Oh god thyroid thyroid, flash low on the front of her neck. The blast
lifted sand into the air, melted it and then showered droplets over miles.
We see one old man stretched out to get a photo of trinitite in situ,
his shirt tugged to bare soft white of belly here on the desert
floor. White sand and wonder. White sand and a really slow burn.

JILL MCDONOUGH is a three-time Pushcart Prize winner and the recipient of Cullman Center, Lannan, NEA, and Stegner fellowships. Her most recent book is Here All Night (Alice James). She teaches in the MFA program at UMass Boston and offers College Reading and Writing in a Boston jail.