When I discovered it was built right over a minor fault, I threw my hands in the air. When I asked why they did it they explained that they did not want to have too long a cooling pipe from the ocean. - Lee Furlong, IAEA, on Fukushima
Shannon Rankin, Bound Sea (ink, paper, giclee)
This morning they’re siphoning
the ocean with buckets and data,
with spittoons and ash. A film crew
records as they remove the moods of it,
the strewn sound, the surf and trembling
crash. They’re mashing extractors
into the shoreline, hauling archives of fish
in alongside bottles, washed up in
the grass. In the terrible tempo of slapdash
and ardor, they sort the luminous hues
into boxes. Blues go down in photos;
greens slip into folders; the oyster-grays
are logged in a tortured longhand. This
morning they cinch a belt and start
squeezing. The wreck shakes. The shell
pressed to the ear goes silent. From here on
all foghorns will take place on paper. The film
smokes; the camera blacks out the sand.