When I was a child, my father
(a child of the fifties, of
TV serials and canned dinners, a child of
a mother with no maternal instincts,
who nevertheless did pretty well),
told me of the nuclear bomb drills
how he and his classmates crouched
under useless desks
and were told, "This will protect you!"
though they never believed it
but thought
(knew)
that death would fall from the sky
I will tell my children, someday,
of how I,
(a child of the twenty-tens, a digital native
news blaring in bright colors from every screen)
how I and my classmates
crouched under desks in the
lockdown drills
preparing for armed intruders
for AK-47s and bullet-marked walls
how we were taught to huddle
in corners, to stay away from windows,
to be
silent
and pray the gunman would pass by
(of the day a medical center
eight miles from my college campus was
massacred,
how we were warned to stay inside
and heard helicopters through the dormitory walls)
I wonder if my children
will have drills
warning of enemies in their schools
(their home)
or if someday the constant fear
the pictures of bomb-blasts and kids with body armor
and pockmarked walls
the so-called shelter of flimsy desks
will abate.
Somehow
I doubt it will.
(a child of the fifties, of
TV serials and canned dinners, a child of
a mother with no maternal instincts,
who nevertheless did pretty well),
told me of the nuclear bomb drills
how he and his classmates crouched
under useless desks
and were told, "This will protect you!"
though they never believed it
but thought
(knew)
that death would fall from the sky
I will tell my children, someday,
of how I,
(a child of the twenty-tens, a digital native
news blaring in bright colors from every screen)
how I and my classmates
crouched under desks in the
lockdown drills
preparing for armed intruders
for AK-47s and bullet-marked walls
how we were taught to huddle
in corners, to stay away from windows,
to be
silent
and pray the gunman would pass by
(of the day a medical center
eight miles from my college campus was
massacred,
how we were warned to stay inside
and heard helicopters through the dormitory walls)
I wonder if my children
will have drills
warning of enemies in their schools
(their home)
or if someday the constant fear
the pictures of bomb-blasts and kids with body armor
and pockmarked walls
the so-called shelter of flimsy desks
will abate.
Somehow
I doubt it will.
