Watch
The morning after the war was won, I sat before the mirror awhile. My face was like the frozen dial of a vintage watch whose hands had spun their last, the space behind the dial hollowed, stripped of gears, abandoned, mourning. After the war was won, I sat before the mirror. A long while passed. I idly thought of radium, each doomed soul who had licked the vile bright poison from her brush, her smile eroding down to bleeding gums. The morning after the war was won, I sobbed before the mirror, wild.