By Mike Beasley
“Take Cover!” She bleats like a shrill recorder.
The second grade class turns giddy with disorder,
Tumbles from chairs, drops down to its knees,
And crawls under desks with no hint of unease.
The percussion of pencils marks time on the floor,
The teacher gets fixed in the frame of a door.
The baritone screech of desks shoved askew
By the boys and the girls and the janitor too,
The giggles and hisses, the bickering friends,
This nuclear moment for now transcends. . .
I loved that rehearsal; it blew me away—
Until the “all clear” absolved my grave play.
But what was I doing under that chair
Imagining Death could not reap me there?
“Hey comrades, that’s cool: Fear makes the grade;
The Establishment strives to seem very afraid.
Their machine manufactures that fear that you feel,
So let’s go, then, to Frisco and party—get real!
Peace and love to you, man, on these cold war nights. . .”
But I day dreamed of ice-swords and snowball fights.
My only ground zero was a yellowing tile
Blasting new floor wax with radiance vile!
And directly across from my fetal lair
Contaminated Laura with the pigtailed hair
Planted kiss upon kiss in her girl-germed palm
And tried to infect me; I tried to seem calm.
She patted my forehead over and over—
A triumph denied her on a playground of clover.