Olexiy
Breus
Former operator at Chernobyl reactor number four.
Now as journalist and artist.
April 26 1986
I drank coffee
and got on the bus.
There had been an accident – power station visible
I saw
the destroyed
Unit – I understood
“hair standing on end.”
April 26 1986
A mass grave
why had they brought me there
to supply
water
to cool the reactor
level 27
I did not know the precise
level of radiation
puddle was 800 micro-roentgen per second
1000 times greater
than the permitted
dose intensity
A mass grave.
I calculated
I worked
two more days on
the third unit.
Then withdrawn
I was forbidden from working.
A mass grave.
Autumn 1986
All evacuated staff
allotted flats in Kiev.
Vladimir’s city.
The Kievans were lucky
to lose them – a degree of hostility
is not a mass grave.
No windows – floors open to
rain – there was
radioactive fallout.
September 1986
My daughter
born in Leningrad
I carefully check the flat
before bringing
her to Kiev.
I got
a radiation meter.
The contamination was so high
it went off the scale.
This was not
an everyday
domestic tool;
It calculated for nuclear
power stations.
Radiation found
the dirtiest place
was the windowsill
under the paint.
They removed
the paint.
Others had it under
the wallpaper.
They changed the wallpaper.
They cleaned the walls.
You could call
the dosimetrist
from the housing department.
They came
They saw
They measured
the situation
as a whole
the gamma background.
Chernobyl
I cannot erase it
from my life.
It is in me forever
nothing will wash it out.
It is not impressions
nor memories;
It is more
It is deeper
It is deep
In the soul.
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