The Correspondent
Iced-over streets and basement doors: Below forbidden upper floors, you'd hide beneath the seats to catch a lecture by Niels Bohr. For a short time between two wars you got to fight for what was yours: Colloquia with quantum themes, a friendly physics corps. Converting mass and energy, fission knocks electrons free. Uranium as effigy, decaying for eternity. Dividing atoms expertly, the chain reactions must proceed. Explosions at sea. Lise, you must hate your fate, your legacy was twice erased. Your reputation in your field was growing slowly more concealed; You left Berlin in '38 upon a train, in fear. With correspondence from abroad, in pen, you tore down old façades: You split an atom like a drop and opened realms of thought. Mass-times-squared velocity of light defines stored energy; you must get out of Germany because of your identity. Doubled-fucking-jeopardy: An empty life is misery. Explosions at sea. Lise, let me hate your fate, your legacy was twice erased. You came to hate the things they built with the uranium they spilled; Your contribution was erased without a hint of guilt.