by Kevin Brown

Once a month in middle school,
we ducked and covered,
crept quietly into the hallways,
as if bombs could hear
whispered gossip about Melanie
and Scott; we sat with
our backs bordering the walls,
heads between our knees
as if praying to the god
of American exceptionalism
to keep radioactive roofs
from falling on us,

but we didn’t wonder
why we practiced:
knew that Northeast Tennessee
was in the top five targets
for the Soviets, thanks to Oak Ridge;
we had seen Red Dawn and The Day After,
even Rocky IV,
so we expected it most when we
expected it least.

We didn’t wonder
how asbestos and cinder block
would save us
from the fate
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
when the inevitable apocalypse
arrived—our school was American-
made, after all—

we didn’t wonder
why we followed the teachers
to a different place to die,
followed the teachers’ directing
us to do as they say,
became one more conforming class,
just like those godless Communists
in Mother Russia.

Kevin Brown (he/him) teaches high school English in Nashville. He has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems, A Lexicon of Lost Words, and Exit Lines. He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. You can find out more about his work on social media at @kevinbrownwrites or on his website, http://kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com.