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More Dangerous Air

BY MARGARITA ENGLE
Newsmen call it the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Teachers say it's the end of the world.

At school, they instruct us to lookup
and watch the Cuban-cursed sky.
Search for a streak of light.
Listen for a piercing shriek,
the whistle that will warn us
as poisonous A-bombs
zoom close.

Hide under a desk.
Pretend that furniture is enough
to protect us against perilous flames.
Radiation. Contamination. Toxic breath.

Each air-raid drill is sheer terror,
but some of the city kids giggle.
They don't believe that death
is real.

They've never touched a bullet,
or seen a vulture, or made music
by shaking
the jawbone
of a mule.

When I hide under my frail school desk,
my heart grows as rough and brittle
as the slab of wood
that fails to protect me
from reality's
gloom.

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