"Poetry 180, a Turning Back to Poetry,"
an anthology by Billy Collins.
One of my favorites happens to be in here--
Terence Winch's "Social Security."
"No one is safe.
The streets are unsafe.
Even in the safety zones, it's not safe.
Even safe sex is not safe.
Even things you lock up in a safe are not safe.
Never deposit anything in a safe deposit box
because it won't be safe there.
Nobody is safe at home during baseball games anymore.
At night, I go around in the dark locking everything,
returning a few minutes later to make sure I locked everything.
It's not safe here.
It is not safe, and they know it.
People get hurt using safety pins.
It was not always this way.
Long ago, everyone felt safe.
Aristotle never felt danger.
Herodotus felt danger but only when Xerxes was around.
Young women were afraid of wingéd dragons but felt relaxed
otherwise.
Timotheus, however, was terrified of storms
until he played one on the flute.
After that, well, after that everyone was more afraid of him
than of the violent west wind, which
was just fine with Timotheus.
Euclid, full of music himself, believed only that there
was safety in numbers."