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 look up
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.


Source: Enchanted Air (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2015

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