When I was about in the second grade,
it seemed they started teaching us what
to do in case of an atom bomb.
And the air raid drills had quite a lasting impression
on me.
Duck under the desk and, you know, you've been through that.
I wrote a poem about that.
There's a reference in it to the testing of the air raid
sirens in Seattle, where I was living
at the time, every Wednesday, every Wednesday noon.
It's called "Preparation."
"It was likely to occur during the happiest story
or at the explosion of a brainstorm
or as the product fused from mere numbers.
The blue sky we knew would go yellow and fear sick.
Then after the flash, white as a bloodless Caucasian.
What we had to learn was like dancing to follow, a desk.
No protection from the teacher's C would save our lives.
There were times we wondered, would we
go all at once, tightly curled, little fetuses,
rooms full of legal abortions?
A brace of peace holding our shoulders back, bent.
We were suspicious of white dawns.
We kept one ear ready always for the voice of our siren mother.
We expect now the friendly alarm Wednesdays
as Sunday we depend on brimstone to quake the church.
Some say that God alone, though he doesn't laugh, is not scared
and that there still are those who sing without government
like birds and are prepared."