“In a small shed at the top of a 100-foot-tall steel tower deep in the New Mexico desert, Donald Hornig sat next to the world’s  first atomic bomb in the late evening of July 15, 1945, reading a book of humorous essays.”
                                                                                                                                  Paul Hornig’s obituary
                                                                                                                                  New York Times, Jan. 26, 2012 
 
In Alamogordo, they say, the sun came up twice that day. Like a God
who threatens glory and punishment it was the most beautiful show
I’d ever seen. The hot start of a star, then a white bloom.

The sand broke into tiny blades of green radioactive glass. Some believed
the monster spark would ignite the stratosphere, but the promise
was so much stronger than our fear.

The explosion was like a birth. Catalysm at the click of a button.
In lightning, I baby-sat the plutonium. I read aloud while the bomb waited.
I put down my book and connected the switches.