Louis Slotin You Will Not Turn Forty (after Ted Hughes)

At your fortieth birthday, on a moonlit beach,
One of your guests is late.
You save a plate. A place is clean and set
Amid the after-dinner mess.
Why are you upset? Everyone is here

And laughing wildly, the whole extended gang —
Old friends and family, your little niece,
Your coterie of Nobel laureates, some heads of state,
And Harry’s here, and Alvin Graves, their wives,
Their eyes run over with ecstatic tears — even

The palm trees rock with laughter, tossing their hair.
Your forty candles come tickled
To the table, trembling with joy. And your daughter
Laughs from your lap. Japan laughs deep through its ash.
Johanna puts her arms around you and the sky

Spins like a bicycle wheel, the stars
Sliding down their spokes.
But your bomb —
What about your bomb?
It’s the only one missing!

We wait all through the night for it to come.