Skinning Tomatoes
16” x 16”
Charcoal, watercolor on pape
16” x 16”
Charcoal, watercolor on pape
Skinning Tomatoes
Please don’t skin tomatoes
By plunging them into boiling water,
And then slipping off their skins.
By plunging them into boiling water,
And then slipping off their skins.
On the day they dropped the Bomb,
Seared by several thousand degrees of flash heat,
Men, women, and children
Turned to red lumps of raw flesh,
Their skins sloughing from their bodies
Just like how you now skin those tomatoes.
Seared by several thousand degrees of flash heat,
Men, women, and children
Turned to red lumps of raw flesh,
Their skins sloughing from their bodies
Just like how you now skin those tomatoes.
From “Masako’s Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima” by Kikuko Otake
Kikuko Otake (maiden name: Furuta) was five years old when the atomic bomb devastated Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Her family had moved to the Uchikoshi neighborhood—just 1.1 miles north of the hypocenter—a few months before the bombing. Her mother, Masako (32), and two brothers (8 and 3) survived, though severely injured. Their 35-year-old father, Nobuichi Furuta, was likely unable to escape the flash heat and perished instantly. Kikuko retains few memories of the blast and its aftermath; she suffered head injuries, physical shock, and months of illness from radiation syndrome.
In 1987, Kikuko earned an M.A. in Education from California State University, Los Angeles, and later became a U.S. citizen. Based on her mother’s account, she wrote Amerika e Hiroshima kara (To America from Hiroshima), published in Japanese in 2003. Masako’s Story is the English adaptation, released in 2007.
At age 85, Kikuko lives with her husband in suburban Los Angeles and remains actively committed to nuclear disarmament efforts.
